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I YOUNG GR.EEI>EY'!^ ARIMVAL IN NEW-YORK. 



THE LIFE 



HORACE GREELEY, 



EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TEIBUN 



BY J. PAETON. 



•* If, on a full and final review, my life and practice shall be found unworthy my piinoi- 
ples, let due infamy be heaped on my memory ; but let none be thereby led to distrust the prin- 
ciples to which I proved recreant, nor yet the ability of some to adorn them by a suitable life 
and conversation- To unerring time be all this committed." 

Horace Gr«cUy in 1846. 




NEW YOEK: 
PUBLISHED BY MASON BROTHERS 

18 5 5. 






Entbred, according to Act of Congress, in the year ISS-l, 

BY MASON BROTHERS, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District 
of New Yorli. 



SIBKEOTTPBD BY ^ PRINTED BY 

THOMAS B. SMITH, JOHN A. GRAY 

216 William St^ N. Y. 95 & 97 Cliff St. 



TO 

THE YOUNG MEN OF THE FREE STATES, 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
BY ONE OF THEIR NUMBER. 



THE JOURNALISTS ARE NOW THE TRUE KINGS AND CLERGY: HENCE- 
FORTH HISTORIANS, UNLESS THEY ARE FOOLS, MUST WRITE NOT OF BOUR- 
BON DYNASTIES, AND TUDORS, AND HAPSBURGS ; BUT OF STAMPED, BROAD- 
SHEET DYNASTIES, AND QUITE NEW SUCCESSIVE NAMES, ACCORDING AS 
THIS OR THE OTHER ABLE EDITOR, OR COMBINATION OF ABLE EDITORS, 

TrilNS THE world's EAR. 

Sartor Beaartu*. 



\ 



r ^ f II t ^ . 



Justice^ alike to the author and to his subject, demands 
the explicit statement of a fact. 

Horace Greeley is wholly innocent of this book. Until I 
had determined to write it, I had no acquaintance with him of 
a personal nature, and no connection except that wliich exists 
between every subscriber to the Tribune and its editor. 
Since that time, I have had a few short interviews with him — 
heard and overheard a few facts of his career from his own lips 
-'had two or three of my best stories spoiled by his telling 
me that that part of them which redounded most to his credit 
was untrue. He has had nothing whatever to do with the com- 
position of the volume, nor has he seen a page of it in manu- 
script or proof, nor does he know one word of its contents. 

I undertook the task simply and solely because I liked the 
man, because I gloried in his career, because I thought the 
Btory of his life ought to be told. 

The writings of an editor usually pass away with the occa- 
sions that called them forth. They may have aroused, amused. 



viii PREFACE. 

instructed and advanced a nation — many nations. They may 
have saved or overturned systems and dynasties ; provoked or 
prevented wars, revolutions and disasters ; thrown around 
Prejudice and Bigotry the decent mantle of Respectability, or 
torn it off; made great truths familiar and fruitful in the pub- 
lic mind, or given a semblance of dignity to the vulgar hue 
and cry which assails such truths always when they are new. 
These things, and others equally important, an editor may do, 
editors have done. But he rarely has leisure to produce a 
WORK which shall perpetuate his name and personal influence. 
A collection of his editorial writings will not do it, for he is 
compelled to write hastily, diffusely, and on the topics of the 
hour. The story of his life may. It is the simple narratives 
in Franklin's autobiography that have perpetuated, not the 
name of that eminent man, the thunder and lightning have his 
name in charge, but the influence of his personality in forming 
the characters of his countrymen. 

The reader has a right to know the manner in which the facts 
and incidents of this work were obtained. I procured, first of 
all, from various sources, a list of Mr. Greeley's early friends, 
partners and relations ; also, a list of the places at which he 
has resided. All of those places I visited ; with as many of 
those persons as I could find I conversed, and endeavored to 
extract from them all they knew of the early life of my hero. 
From their narratives, and from the letters of others to whom 
I wrote, the account of his early life was compiled. To all of 
them, for the readiness with which they made their communi 
cations, to many of them for their generous and confiding hos 



PREFACE. ix 

pitality to a stranger, I again offer the poor return of my sin- 
cere thanks. 

For the rest, I am indebted to the following works : E. L. 
Parker's History of Londonderry ; the Bedford Centennial ; 
the New Hampshire Book ; the Rose of Sharon ; the Life of 
Margaret Fuller ; Horace Greeley's Hints towards Reforms, 
and Glances at Europe ; also, to files of the New Yorker, Log 
Cabin, Jeffersonian, American Laborer, "Whig Almanac, and 
Tribune. Nearly every number — there are more than five 
thousand numbers in all — of each of those periodicals, I have 
examined, and taken from them what they contain respecting 
the life and fortunes of their editor. 

Tliis book is as true as I could make it ; nothmg has been in- 
serted or suppressed for the sake of making out a case. Er- 
rors of detail in a work containing so many details as this can 
scarcely be avoided ; but upon the correctness of every import- 
ant statement, and upon the general fidelity of the picture 
presented, the reader may rely. Horace Greeley, as the read- 
er will discover, has been a marked person from his earliest 
childhood, and he is remembered by his early friends with a 
vividness and affection very extraordinary. Moreover, in the 
political and personal contentions of his public life, he has fre- 
quently been compelled to become autobiographical ; therefore, 
in this volume he often tells his own story. That he tells it 
truly, that he is incapable of insincerity, every one with truth 
enough in his heart to recognize truth in others will perceive. 

The opinion has been recently expressed that the life of a 
man ought not to be written in his lifetime. To which, among 



X PREFACE. 

many other things, this might be replied : If the lives of pol 
iticians like Tyler, Pierce, and others, may be 'written in 
their lifetime, with a view to subserve the interests of party, 
why may not the life of Horace Greeley, in the hope of sub- 
serving the interests of the country 1 Besides, those who think 
this work ought not to have been ^vritten are at liberty not to 
read it. 

There are those who will read it ; and, imperfect as it is, with 
pleasure. They are those who have taken an interest in Hor- 
ace Greeley's career, and would like to know how he came to 
•>e the man he is. " J. P. 

Xew Yoek, December, 1854, 



CONTENTS. 

» » »■ 

CHAPTER I. 

THE SCOTCH-IEISH OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

PARS 

Londonderry in Ireland— The Siege— Emigration to New England— Settlement of 
Londonderry, New Hampshire— The Scotch-Irish introduce the culture of the 
potato and the manufacture of linen— Character of the Scotch-Irish— Their sim- 
plicity-Love of fun— Stories of the early clergymen— Traits in the Scotch-Irish 
character— Zeal of the Londonderrians in the Revolution— Horace Greeley's al- 
usion to his Scotch-Irish ancestry 19 

CHAPTER II. 

ANCESTORS. — PARENTAGE. — BIRTH. 

Origin of the Family— Old Captain Ezekiel Greeley— Zaccheus Greeley— Zaccheus 
the Second— Roughness and Tenacity of the Greeley race— Maternal Ancestors of 
Horace Greeley— John Woodburu— Character of Horace Greeley's Great-grand- 
mother— His Grandmother— Romantic Incident— Horace Greeley is born "as 
black as a chimney"— Comes to hia color— Succeeds to the name of Horace 28 

CHAPTER III. 

EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

The Village of Amherst— Character of the adjacent country— The Greeley farm— 
The Tribune In the room in which its Editor was bom— Horace learns to read- 
Book up-side down— Goes to school in Londonderry— A district school forty 
years ago— Horace as a young orator — Has a mania for spelling hard words — 
Gets great glory at the spelling school— Recollections of his surviving schoolfel- 
lows—His future eminence foretold— Delicacy of ear— Early choice of a trade— 
His courage and timidity — Goes to school in Bedford — A favorite among his 
schoolfellows— His early fondness for the village newspaper— Lies in ambush for 
the post-rider who brought it— Scours the country for books— Project of sending 
him to an academy— The old sea-captain— Horace as a farmer's boy— Let us do 
our stint first— His way of fishing 34 



xil CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. . 

HIS FATHER R-JINE D — R EM OVAL TO VERMONT. 

PAOB 

New Hampshire before the era of manufactures— Causes of his father's failure- 
Rum in the olden time — An execution in the house — Flight of the father — Horace 
sud the Rum Jug— Compromise with the creditors— Removal to another farm — 
Final ruin — Removal to Vermont — ^The winter journey— Poverty of the family- 
Scene at their new home — Cheerfulness iu misfortune 52 



CHAPTER V. 

AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

Description of the country— Clearing up Land— AH the family assist 4 la Swisa- 
Family-Robinson— Primitive costume of Horace— His early indifference to dress 
—His manner and attitude in school— A Peacemaker among the boys— Gets into 
a scrape, and out of it — Assists his school-fellows in their studies — An evening 
scene at home — Horace knows too much — Disconcerts his teachers by his ques- 
tions — Leaves school — The pine-knots still blaze on the hearth — Reads incessant- 
ly — Becomes a great draught player — Bee-hunting — Reads at the Mansion House 
— Taken for an Idiot— And for a possible President— Reads Mrs. Hemans with 
rapture— A Wolf Story— A Pedestrian Journey— Horace and the horseman- 
Yoking tlie Oxen— Scene with an old Soaker— Rum in Westhaven- Horace's 
First Pledge— Narrow escape from drowning— His religious doubts— Becomes a 
Universalist— Discovers the humbug of " Democracy"- Impatient to begin his ap- 
prenticeship 



CHAPTER VI. 

A PPRENTICE SHIP. 

The Village of East Poultney— Horace applies for the Place— Scene in the Garden 
—He makes an Impression— A diflSculty arises and is overcome— He enters the 
office — Rite of Initiation — Horace the Victor — His employer's recollections of him 
— The Pack of Cards — Horace begins to paragraph — Joins the Debating Society — 
His manner of Debating — Horace and the Dandy — His noble conduct to his 
father— His first glimpse of Saratoga— His manners at the Table— Becomes the 
Town-Encyclopedia— The Doctor's Story— Recollections of one of his fellow ap- 
prentices—Horace's favorite Poets— Politics of the time— The Anti-Mason Excite- 
ment—The Northern Spectator stons— The Apprentice is Fre* 82 



CONTENTS. XIU 

CHAPTER VII. 

HE WANDERS. 

PAGB 

Horace loaves Pojiltney— Ilis first Overcoat— Home to his Father's Log House- 
Ranges the country for work— The Sore Leg Cured— Gets Employment, but Utile 
Money- Astonishes the Draught-Players— Goes to Erie, Pa.— Interview with an 
Editor— Becomes a Journeyman in the Office— Description of Erie— The Lake— 
His Generosity to his Father— His new clothes— No more work at Erie— Starts for 
New York --*-«• 105 



CHAPTER VIII. 

akrivalinnewyoPwK:. 

The journey— a night on the tow-path— He reaches the city— Inventory of his prop- 
erty-Looks for a boarding-house— Finds one— Expends half his capital upon 
clothes — Searches for employment — Berated by David Hale as a runaway ap- 
prentice — Continues the search — Goes to church — Hears of a vacancy — Obtains 

work— The boss takes him for a < fool,' but changes his opinion— Nicknamed 

'the Ghost'— Practical jokes— Horace metamorphosed— Dispute about commas 
—The shoemaker's boarding-house— Grand banquet on Sundays. , 118 



CHAPTER IX. 

FEOM OFFICE TO OFFICE. 

Leaves West's— Works on the ' Evening Post '—Story of Mr. Leggett— ' Commer- 
cial Advertiser '— ' Spirit of the Times '—Specimen of his writing at this period— 
Naturally fond of the drama— Timothy Wiggins— Works for Mr, Redfield— The 
first lift 133 



CHAPTER X. 
THE FIRST PENNY PAPE R — A ND WHO THOUGHT OF IT 

Importance of the cheap daily press — The originator of the idea — History of the 
idea— Dr. Sheppard's Chatham-street cogitations— The Idea is conceived— It is 
born— Interview with Horace Greeley— The Doctor thinks he is 'no common boy' 
—The schemer batfled— Daily papers twenty-five years ago— Dr. Sheppard comes 
to a resolution — The firm of Greeley and Story — The Morning Post appears — And 
fails— The sphere of the choap press— Fanny Fern and the poa-nut merchant 137 



xiv ' CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XL 

THE FIEM CONTINUES. 

PAGB 

Lottery printing— The Constitutionalist— Dudley S. Gregory— Tiie lottery suicide- 
The firm prospers — Sudden death of Mr. Story — A new partner — Mr. Greeley as a 
master— A dinner story— Sylvester Graham— Horace Greeley at the Graham 
House— The New Yoiker projected— James Gordon Bennett ]46 

CHAPTER XII. 

EDITOE OF THE NEW YOEKEE. 

Character of the paper— Its early fortunes— Happiness of the Editor— Scene in the 
Office— Specimens of Horace Greeley's Poetry— Subjects of his Essays— His Opin- 
ions then— His Marriage— The Silk-stocking Story— A day in Washington- His 
impressions of the Senate — Pecuniary difficulties — Cause of the New Yorker's ill- 
success as a Business — The missing letters — The Editor gets a nickname — The 
Agonies of a Debtor— Park Benjamin— Henry J. Raymond > 151 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE JEFFEE80NIAN. 

Objects of tho Jeffersonian— Its character— A novel Glorious-Victory paragraph— 
The Graves and Cilley duel— The Editor overv/^orked 174 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LOG CABIN. — "TIPPECANOE AND TYLEE TOO." 

Wire-pulling— The delirium of 1840— The Log Cabin— Unprecedented hit— A 
glance at its pages— Log Cabin jokes— Log Cabin song- Horace Greeley and 
the cake-basket— Pecimiary difficulties continue— The Tribune announced 180 



. • CHAPTER XY. 

STAETS THE T E I B TJ N E . 

'he Capital— The Daily Press of New York in 1841— The Tribune appears— The 
Omens unpropitious — The first week— Conspiracy to put down the Tribune— The 
Tribune triumphs— Thomas McElrath— The Tribune alive— Industry of the Edi- 
tors— Their, independence— Horace Greeley and John Tyler— The Tribune a 
Fixed Fact 191 



/ 
CONTENTS. X7 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE TEIBUNE AND F0UKIERI8M. 

PAGE 

What made Horace Greeley a Socialist— The hard winter of 1838— Albert Brisbane 
—The subject broached— Series of articles by Mr. Brisoane begun— Their effect- 
Cry of Mad Dog — Discussion between Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond — 
How it arose— Abstract of it in a conversational form. 199 



CHAPTER xyn. 



Increase of price— The Tribune offends the Sixth Ward fighting-men — The office 
Threatened— Novel preparations for defense — Charles Dickens defended— The 
Editor travels— Visits Washington, and sketches the Senators— At Mount Vernon 
-At Niagara— A hard hit at Major Noah 217 



CHAPTER XVm. 

THE TEIBUNE AND J. FENIMOEE COOPER. 

The libel— Horace Greeley's narrative of the trial— He reviews the opening speech 
of Mr. Cooper's counsel — A striking illustration— He addresses the jury— Mr. 
Cooper sums up — Horace Greeley comments on the speech of the novelist— In 
doing so he perpetrates new libels— The verdict— IMr. Greeley's remarks on the 
same— Strikes a bee-line for New York— A new suit— An imaginary case 224 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE TEIBUNE CONTINUES. 

The Special Express system— Night adventures of Enoch Ward— Gig Express— Ex- 
press from Halifax— Baulked by the snow-drifts— Party warfare then— Books 
published by Greeley and McElrath— Course of the Tribune— The Editor travels 
— Scenes in Washington — An incident of travel — Clay and Frelinghuysen — The 
exertions of Horace Greeley— Results of the defeat— The Tribune and Slavery 
—Burning of the Tribune Building— The Editor's reflections upon the fire 240 

CHAPTER XX. 

MAEGAEET FULLER. 

Her writings in the Tribune— She resides with Mr. Greeley — His narrative — Dietetic 
Sparring— Her manner of writing— Woman's Rights— Her generosity— Her inde- 
pendence—Her love of children— Margaret and Pickie— Her opinion of Mr. Gree- 
ley— Death of Pickie 253 



XVI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

EDITOEIAL EEPAETEES. 

PAGE 

At war with all the world— The spirit of the Tribune— Retorts vituperative— The 
Tribune and Dr. Potts— Some prize tracts suggested— An atheist's oath— A word 
for domestics— Irish Democracy— The modern drama— Hit at Dr. Hawks— Disso- 
lution of the Union— Dr. Franklin's story— A Picture for Polk— Charles Dickens 
and Copyright— Charge of malignant falsehood— Preaching and Practice— Col. 
Webb severely hit— Hostility to the Mexican war— Violence incited— A few 
sparks— The course of the Tribune— Wager with the Herald 263 



CHAPTER XXH. 

1848! 

Revolution in Europe— The Tribune exults— The Slievegammon letters— Taylor and 
Fillmore— Course of the Tribune— Horace Greeley at Vauxhall Garden— His elec- 
tion to Congress 282 



CHAPTER XXni. 

THEEE MONTHS IN CONGE ESS. 

His objects as a Member of Congress— His first acts— The Chaplain hypocrisy— The 
Land Reform Bill— Distributing the Documents— Offers a novel Resolution— The 
Mileage Expos6— Congressional delays— Explosion in the House— Mr. Turner's 
oration— Mr. Greeley defends himself— The Walker Tariff— Congress in a pet- 
Speech at the Printer's Festival— The house in good humor— Traveling dead- 
head—Personal explanations— A dry haul— The amendment game— Congression- 
al dignity— Battle of the Books— The Recruiting System— The last night of the 
Session— The ' usual gratuity'— The Inauguration Ball— Farewell to his constitu- 
ATits 2Rfi 



CHAPTETw XXIY. 

ASSOCIATION IN THE T E I B TJ N E OFFICE. 

Accessions to the corps— The course of the Tribune— Horace Greeley in Ohio— The 
Rochester knockings— The mediums at Mr. Greeley's house— Jenny Lind goes to 
see them— Her behavior— Woman's Rights Convention— The Tribune Associa- 
tion—The hireling system 319 



CONTENTS. XVll 



CHAPTER XXV. 

ON THE PLATFOE M. — H INTS TOWARDS EEFOliMS. 

PAGK 

The Lecture System — Comparative popularity of the leading Lecturers — Horace 
Greeley at the Tabernacle — His audience — His appearance — His manner of speak- 
ing— His occasional addresses— The 'Hints' published— Its one subject, the 
Emancipation of Labor — The Problems of the Time — The 'successful' man — The 
duty of the State— The educated class— A narrative for workingmen— Tne catas- 
trophe 326 



CHAPTER XXVL 

THEEE MONTHS IN EUEOPE. 

The Voyage out— First impression of England— Opening of the Exhibition— Char- 
acteristic observations — He attends a grand Banquet — He sees the Sights — He 
speaks at Exeter Hall — The Play at Devoushire House — Robert Owen's birth-day 
—Horace Greeley before a Committee of the House of Commons— He throws 
light upon the subject— Vindicates tho American Press— Journey to Paris— The 
Sights of Paris— The Opera and Ballet— A false Prophet— His opinion of tho 
French— Journey to Italy— Anecdote— A nap in the Diligence— Arrival at Rome 
—In the Galleries— Scene in the Coliseum— To England again- Triumph of the 
American Reaper— A week in Ireland and Scotland— His opinion of the English 
—Homeward Bound— His arrival— The Extra Tribune 346 



CHAPTER XXYIl. 

R EOENTL Y. 

Deliverance from Party— A Private Platform— Last Interview with Henry Clay- 
Horace Greeley a Farmer — He irrigates and drains — His Advice to a Yoimg Man 
—The Daily Times— A costly Mistake— The Isms of the Tribune— The Tribune 
gets Glory— The Tribune in Parliament— Proposed Nomination for Governor— 
His Life written— A Judge's Daughter for Sale 375 



CHAPTER XXYHI. 

DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

The streets before daybreak— Waking the newsboys— Morning scene in the press- 
room— The Compositor's room— The four Phalanxes— The Tribune Directory— A 
lull in the Tribime office— A glance at the paper— The advertisements— Tele- 
graphic marvels— Marine Intelligenee— New Publications— Letters from the peo- 



XVm CONTENTS. 

rxei 
pie— Editorial articles— The editorial Rooms— The Sanctum Sanctorum— Solon 
Robinson— Bayard Taylor— William Henry Fry— George Ripley— Charles A. 
Dana— F. J. Ottftrson— George M. Snow— Enter Horace Greeley^His Prelimin- 
ary botheration— The composing-room in the evening— The editors at work- 
Mr. Greeley's manner of writing— Midnight-Three o'clock in the morning— The 
carriers 391 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

POSITION AND INFLUENCE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

At the head of his Profession— Extent of his Influence— Nature of his Influence— 
A Conservative-Radical- His Practical Suggestions— To Aspiring Young Men- 
Have a Home of yoiir own—To Young Mechanics— Coming to the City— A La- 
bor-Exchange—Pay as you go— To the Lovers of Knowledge— To Young Orators 
— The Colored People— To young Lawyers and Doctors— To an inquiring Slave- 
holder—To Country Editors— In Peace, prepare for War— To Country Merchants 
—Tenement Houses 411 



CHAPTER XXX. 

APPEARANCE — MANNERS — HABITS. 

His person and countenance- Phrenological developments— His rustic manners- 
Town eccentricities— Horace Greeley in Broadway— 'Horatius' at church— Horace 
Greeley at home 421 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

GOKOLU'UON 434 



THE LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SCOTCH-IKISH OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

Londonderry in Ireland— The Siege— Emigration to New Eng^^and— Settlement of 
Londonderry, New Hampshire— The Scotch-Irish introduce the culture of the 
potato and the manufacture of linen— Character of the Scotch-Irish— Their sim* 
plicity— Love of fun— Stories of the early clergymen— Traits in the Scotch- 
Irish character — Zeal of the Londonderrians in the Revolution — Horace Greeley's 
allusion to his Scotch-Irish ancestry. 

New Eampshiee, the native State of Horace Greeley, was set- 
tled in part by colonists from Massacliusetts and Connecticut, and 
in part by emigrants from the north of Ireland. The latter were 
called Scotch-Irish, for a reason which a glance at their history 
will show. 

Ulster, the most northern of the four provinces of Ireland, has 
been, during the last two hundred and fifty years, superior to the 
rest in wealth and civilization. The cause of its superiority is 
known. About the year 1612, when James I. was king, there was 
a rebellion of the Catholics in the north of Ireland. Upon its sup- 
pression, Ulster, embracing the six northern counties, and contain- 
ing half a million acres of land, fell to the king by the attainder 
of the rebels. Under roy^l encouragement and furtherance, a com- 
pany was formed in London for the purpose of planting colonies in 
that fertile province, which lay waste from the ravages of the re- 
cent war. The land was divided into shares, the largest of which 
did not exceed two thousand acres. Colonists were invited over 
from England and Scotland. The natives were expelled from their 
fastnesses in the hills, and forced to settle upon the plains. Somo 



20 THE SCOTCH-IRISH OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

efforts, it appears, were made to teacli them arts and agriculture. 
Robbery and assassination were punished. And, thus, by the in- 
fusion of new blood, and the partial improvement of the ancient 
race, Ulster, which had been the most savage and turbulent of the 
Irish provinces, became, and remains to this day, the best culti- 
vated, the richest, and the most civilized. 

One of the six counties was Londonderry, the capital of which, 
called by the same name, had been sacked and razed during the 
rebellion. The city was now rebuilt by a company of adventurers 
from London, and the county was settled by a colony from Argyle- 
shire in Scotland, who were thenceforth called Scotch-Irish. Of 
what stuff these Scottish colonists were made, their after-history 
amply and gloriously shows. The colony took root and flourished 
in Londonderry. In 1689, the year of the immortal siege, the city 
was an important fortified town of twenty-seven thousand inhabit- 
ants, and the county was proportionally populous and productive. 
William of Orange had reached the British throne. James II. re- 
turning from France had landed in Ireland, and was making an 
effort to recover his lost inheritance. The Irish Catholics were 
still loyal to him, and hastened to rally round his banner. But 
Ulster was Protestant and Presbyterian ; the city of Londonderry 
was Ulster's stronghold, and it was the chief impediment in the 
way of James' proposed descent upon Scotland. "With what reso- 
lution and daring the people of Londonderry, during the ever-mem- 
orable siege of that city, fought and endured for Protestantism and 
freedom, the world well knows. For seven months they held out 
against a besieging army, so numerous that its slain numbered nine 
thousand. The besieged lost three thousand men. To such ex- 
tremities were they reduced, that among the market quotations of 
the times, we find items like these:— a quarter of a dog, five shil- 
lings and six-pence ; a dog's head, two and six-pence ; horse-flesh, 
one and six-pence per pound ; horse-blood, one shilling per quart ; a 
cat, four and six-pence; a rat, one shilling; a mouse, six-pence. 
When all the food that remained in the city was nine half-starved 
horses and a pint of meal per man, the people were still resolute. 
At the very last extremity, they were relieved by a provisioned 
fleet, and the army of James retired in despair. 

On the settlement of the kingdom under William and Mary, the 



EMIGRATION TO NEW ENGLAND. 21 

Presbyterians of Londonderry did not find themselves in tlio en- 
joyment of the freedom to which they conceived themselves enti- 
tled. They were dissenters from the established church. Their 
pastors were not recognized by the law as clergymen, nor their 
places of worship as churches. Tithes were exacted for the support 
of the Episcopal clergy. They were not proprietors of the soil, 
but held their lands as tenants of the crown. They were hated 
alike, and equally, by the Irish Catholics and the English Episcopa- 
lians. When, therefore, in 1617, a son of one of the leading cler- 
gyman returned from New England with glowing accounts of that 
* plantation,' a furor of emigration arose in the town and county 
of Londonderry, and portions of four Presbyterian congregations, 
with their four pastors, united in a scheme for a simultaneous remo- 
val across the seas. One of the clergymen was first despatched to 
Boston to make the needful inquiries and arrangements. He was 
the bearer of an address to " His Excellency, the Eight Honorable 
Colonel Samuel Smith, Governor of JSTew England," which assured 
his Excellency of " our sincere and hearty inclination to transport 
ourselves to that very excellent and renowned plantation, upon our 
obtaining from his Excellency suitable encouragement." To this 
address, the original of which still exists, two hundred and seven 
names were appended, and all but seven in the hand- writing of the 
individuals signing — a fact which proves the superiority of the emi- 
grants to the majority of their countrymen, both in position and 
intelligence. One of the subscribers was a baronet, nine were cler- 
gymen, and three others were graduates of the University of Ed- 
inburgh. 

On the fourth of August, 1718, the advance party of Scotch- 
Irish emigrants arrived in five ships at Boston. Some of them re- 
mained in that city and founded the church in Federal street, of which 
Dr. Channing was afterwards pastor. Others attempted to settle in 
Worcester; but as they were Irish and Presbyterians, such a 
storm of prejudice against them arose among the enlightened 
Congregationalists of that place, that they were obliged to flee be- 
fore it, and seek refuge in the less populous places of Massachusetts. 
Sixteen families, after many months of tribulation and wandering, 
selected for thoir permanent abode a tract twelve miles square, 
called l^utfield, whicli. now embraces the townships of London 



22 THE SCOTCH-IRISH OF NEW' HAMPSHIRE. 

derry, Deny and Windham, in Eockingham county, New Hamp 
shire. The land was a free gift from the king, in consideration ol 
the services rendered his throne by the people of Londonderry in the 
defence of their city. To each settler Avas assigned a farm of one 
hundred and twenty acres, a house lot, and an out lot of sixty 
acres. The lands of the men who had personally served during 
the siege, were exempted from taxation, and were known down to 
the period of the revolution as the Exempt Farms. The settle- 
ment of Londonderry attracted new emigrants, and it soon became 
one of the most prosperous and famous in the colony. 

It was there that the potato was first cultivated, and there that 
linen was first made in ISTew England. The English colonists at that 
day appear to have been unacquainted with the culture of the po- 
tato, and the familiar story of the Andover farmer who mistook the 
balls which grow on the potato vine for the genuine fruit of the 
plant, is mentioned by a highly respectable historian of New Hamp- 
shire as " a well-authenticated fact." 

"With regard to the linen manufacture, it may be mentioned as a 
proof of the thrift and skill of the Scotch-Irish settlers, that, as early 
as the year 1748, the linens of Londonderry had so high a reputa- 
tion in the colonies, that it was found necessary to take measure3 to 
prevent the linens made in other towns from being fraudulently sold 
for those of Londonderry manufacture. A town meeting was held 
in that year foi* the purpose of appointing " fit and proper persons 
to survey and inspect linens and hollands made in the town for sale, 
so that the credit of our manufactory be kept up, and the purchaser 
of our linens may not be imposed upon with foreign and outlandish 
linens in the name of ours." Inspectors and sealers were accord- 
ingly appointed, who were to examine and stamp " all the hollands 
made and to be made in our town, whether brown, white, speckled, 
or checked, that are to be exposed for sale ;" for which service they 
were empowered to demand from the owner of said linen " sixpence, 
old tenor, for each piece." And this occurred within thirty years 
from the erection of the first log-hut in the township of London- 
derry. However, the people had brought their spinning and weav* 
ing implements with them from Ireland, and their industry was not 
once interrupted by an attack of Indians. 

These Scotch-Irish of Londonderry were a very peculiar people. 



CHARACTER OF THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 23 

They were Scotcli-Irisli in character and in name ; of Irish viva- 
city, generosity, and daring; Scotch in frugality, industry, and reso- 
lution ; a race in whose composition nature seems, for once, to have 
kindly blended the quahties that rerfSer men interesting with those 
that render them prosperous. Their habits and their minds were 
simple. They lived, for many years after the settlement began to 
thrive, upon the fish which they caught at the falls of Amoskeag, 
upon game, and upon such products of the soil as beans, potatoes, 
samp, and barley. It is only since the year 1800 that tea and coffee, 
those ridiculous and effeminating drinks, came into anything like 
general use among them. It was not till some time after the Revo- 
lution that a chaise was seen in Londonderry, and even then it ex- 
cited great wonder, and was deemed an unjustifiable extravagance. 
Shoes, we are told, were little worn in the summer, except on Sun- 
days and holidays ; and then they were carried in the Tiand to within 
a short distance of the churchy where they loere put on ! There was 
little buying and selling among them, but much borrowing and 
lending. " If a neighbor killed a calf," says one writer, " no part 
of it was sold ; but it was distributed among relatives and friends, 
the poor widow always having a piece ; and the minister, if he did 
not get the shoulder, got a portion as good." The women were ro- 
bust, worked on the farms in the busy seasons, reaping, mowing, 
and even ploughing on occasion; and the hum of the spinning- 
wheel was heard in every house. An athletic, active, indomitable, 
prolific, long-lived race. For a couple to have a dozen children, 
and for all the twelve to reach maturity, to marry, to have large 
families, and die at a good old age, seems to have been no uncom- 
mon case among the original Londonderrians. 

Love of fun was one of their marked characteristics. One of 
their descendants, the Rev. J. H. Morrison, has written — " A prom- 
inent trait in the character of the Scotch-Irish was their ready wit. 
Fo subject was kept sacred from it ; the thoughtless, the grave, the 
old, and the young, alike enjoyed it. Our fathers were serious, 
thoughtful men, but they lost no occasion which might promise sport. 
Weddings, huskings, log-rolhngs and raisings — what a host of queer 
stories is connected with them ! Our ancestors dearly loved fun. 
There was a grotesque humor, and yet a seriousness, pathos and 
strangeness about them, which in its way has, perhaps, never been 



24 THE SCOTCH-IRISH OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

equalled. It was tlie sternness of the Scotch Covenanter, softened 
hy a century's residence abroad, amid persecution and trial, wedded 
to the comic humor and pathos of the Irish, and then grown wild 
in the woods among their own New England mountains." 

There never existed a people at once so jovial and so religious. 
This volume could be filled with a oollection of their rehgious re- 
partees and pious jokes. It was Pat. Larkin, a Scotch-Irishman, 
near Londonderry, who, when he was accused of being a Catholic, 
because his parents were Catholics, replied : " If a man happened 
tc be born in a stable, would that make him a horse ?" and he won 
his bride by that timely spark. 

Quaint, bold, and witty were the old Scotch-Irish clergymen, 
the men of the siege, as mighty with carnal weapons as with 
spiritual. There was no taint of the sanctimonious in their rough, 
honest, and healthy natures. During the old French war, it is re- 
lated, a British ofiicer, in a peculiarly " stunning " uniform, came 
one Sunday morning to the Londonderry Meeting House. Deeply 
conscious was this individual that he was exceedingly well dressed 
and he took pains to display his finery and his figure bj: standing 
in an attitude, during the delivery of the sermon, which had the 
effect of withdrawing the minds of the young ladies from the same. 
At length, the minister, who had botli fought and preached in 
Londonderry ' at home,' and feared neither man, beast, devil, nor 
red-coat, addressed the officer thus : " Te are a braw lad ; ye ha'e 
a braw suit of claithes, and we ha'e a' seen them ; ye may sit 
doun.^'' The officer subsided instantly, and old Dreadnought went 
on with his sermon as though nothing had happened. The same 
clergyman once began a sermon on the vain self-confidence of St. 
Peter, with the following energetic remarks : " Just like Peter, aye, 
mair forrit than wise, ganging swaggering about wi' a sword at his 
side ; an' a puir hand he made of it when he came to the trial ; for 
he only cut off a chiel's lug, an' he ouglit to lid) split down his 
hsady On another occasion, he is said to have opened on a well- 
known text in this fashion : " ' I can do all things ;' ay, can ye 
Paul? rU bet yea dollar o' that (placing a dollar on the desk). 
But stop! let's see what else Paul says: 'I can do all things 
through Christ, which strengtheneth me ;' ay, sae can I, Paul. I 
draw ray bet," and he returned the dollar to his pocket. Thej 



TRAITS IN THE SCOTCH CHARACTER. 25 

prayed a joke sometimes, those Scotcli-Irish clergj^men. One pastor, 
dining with a new settler, who had no table, and served up his 
dinner in a basket, implored Heaven to bless the man " in his haskel, 
and in his store;" which Heaven did, for the man afterwards grew 
rich. "What is the difference," asked a youth, "between the Con- 
gregationalists and Presbyterians ?" " The difference is," replied 
the pastor, with becoming gravity, "that the Congregationalist 
goes home between the services and eats a regular dinner ; but the 
Presbyterian puts off his till after meeting." 

And how pious they were ! For many years after the settle- 
ment, the omission of the daily act of devotion in a single household 
would have excited general alarm. It is related as a fact^ that 
the first pastor of Londonderry, being informed one evening that 
an individual was becoming neglectful of family worship, imme- 
diately repaired to his dwelling. The family had retired ; he called 
up the master of the house, inquired if the report were true, and 
asked him whether he had omitted family prayer that evening. The 
man confessed that he had ; and the pastor, havmg admonished him 
of his fault, refused to leave the house until the delinquent had called 
up his wife, and performed with her the omitted observance. The 
first settlers of some of the towns near Londonderry walked every 
Sunday eight, ten, twelve miles to church, taking their children 
with them, and crossing the Merrimac in a canoe or on a raft. 
The first public enterprises of every settlement were the building of 
a church, the construction of a block-house for defense against the 
Indians, and the establishment of a school. In the early times of 
course, every man went to church with his gun, and the minister 
preached peace and good-will with a loaded musket peering above 
the sides of the pulpit. 

The Scotch-Irish were a singularly honest people. There is an 
entry in the town-record for 1734, of a complaint against John 
Morrison, that, having found an axe on the road, he did not leave 
it at the next tavern, ' as the laws of the country doth require.' John 
acknowledged the fact, but pleaded in extenuation, that the axe 
was of so small value, that it would not have paid the cost of pro^ 
claiming. The session, however, censured him severely, and ex- 
horted him to repent of the evil. The following is a curious extract 
from the records of a Scotch-Irish settlement for 1756 : " Voted^ to 

2 



26 THE SCOTCH-IRISH OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

give Mr. Jolin Houston equal to forty pounds sterling, in old tenor, 
as the law shall find the rate in dollars or sterling money, for his 
yearly stipend, if he is our ordained minister. And what number 
of Sabbath days, annually, we shall think ourselves not able to pay 
him, he shall have at his own use and disposal, deducted out of the 
aforesaid sum in proportion." The early records of those settle- 
ments abound in evidence, that the people had an habitual and 
most scrupulous^regard for the rights of one another. 

Kind, generous, and compassionate, too, they were. Far back in 
1725, when the little colony was but seven years old, and the people 
were struggling with their first difficulties, we find the session or- 
dering two collections in the church, one to assist James Clark to 
ransom his son from the Indians, which produced five pounds, and 
another for the relief of William Moore, whose two cows had been 
killed by the falling of a tree, which produced three pounds, seven- 
teen shillings. These were great sums in those early days. We 
read, also, in the History of Londonderry, of MacGregor, its first 
pastor, becoming the champion and defender of a personal enemy 
who was accused of arson, but whom the magnanimous pastor 
believed innocent. He volunteered his defense in court. The man 
was condemned and imprisoned, but MacGregor continued his ex- 
ertions in behalf of the prisoner until his innocence was established 
and the judgment was reversed. 

That they were a brave people need scarcely be asserted. Of 
that very MacGregor the story is told, that when he went out at 
the head of a committee, to remonstrate with a belligerent party, 
who were unlawfully cutting hay from the out-lands of London- 
derry, and one of the hay-stealers, in the heat of dispute, shook his 
fist in the minister's face, saying, " Nothing saves you, sir, but your 
black coat," MacGregor instantly exclaimed, " Well, it shan't save 
you, sir," and pulling off his coat, was about to suit the action to 
the word, when the enemy beat a sudden retreat, and troubled the 
Londonderrians no more. The Scotch-Irish of E'ew Hampshire 
were among the first to catch the spirit of the Ee volution. They 
confronted British troops, and successfully too, tefore the battle of 
Lexington. Four Enghsh soldiers had deserted from their quarters 
in Boston, and taken refuge in Londonderry. A party of troops, 
dispatched for their arrest, discovered, secured, and conveyed them 



HORACE GREELEY S ALLUSION TO HIS ANCEBTRY. 27 

part of the way to Boston. A band of young men assembled and 
pursued them ; and so overawed the British officer by the boldness 
of their demeanor, that he gave up his prisoners, who were escorted 
back to Londonderry in triumph. There were remarkably few 
tories in Londonderry. The town was united almost as one man 
on the side of Independence, and sent, it is believed, more men to 
the war, and contributed more money to the cause, than any other 
town of equal resources in New England. Here are a few of the 
town-meeting " votes" of the first months of the war : " Voted^ to 
give our men that have gone to the Massachusetts government 
seven dollars a month, until it be known what Congress will do in 
that affair, and that the officers shall have as much pay as those in 
the Bay government." — " Voted^ that a committee of nine men be 
chosen to inquire into the conduct of those men that are thought 
not to be friends of their country." — " Voted^ that the aforesaid com- 
mittee have no pay." — " Voted^ that twenty more men be raised im- 
mediately, to be ready upon the first emergency, as minute men." — 
" Voted^ that twenty more men be enlisted in Capt. Aiken's com- 
pany, as minute men." — " Voted^ that the remainder of the stock of 
powder shall be divided out to every one that hath not already re- 
ceived of the same, as far as it will go ; provided he produces a gun 
of his own, in good order, and is willing to go against the enemy, 
and promises not to waste any of the powder, only in self-defense \ 
and provided, also, that he show twenty good bullets to suit his 
gun, and six good flints." In 1777 the town gave a bounty of 
thirty pounds for every man who enlisted for three years. All the 
records and traditions of the revolutionary period breathe unity and 
determination. Stark, the hero of Bennington, was a London- 
derrian. 

Such were the Scotch-Irish of New Hampshire ; of such material 
were the maternal ancestors of Horace Greeley composed ; and 
from his maternal ancestors he derived much that distinguishes him 
from men in general. 

In the "New Yorker" for August 28, 1841, he alluded to his 
Scotch-Irish origin in a characteristic way. Noticing Charlotte 
Elizabeth's " Siege of Derry," he wrote : 

"We do not like this work, and we choose to say so frankly. 
What is the use of reviving and aggravating these old stories (alas ) 



28 



THE SCOTCH-IRISH OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



how true !) of scenes in whicli Christians of diverse creeds have tor- 
tured and butchered each other for the glory of God ? We had an- 
cestors in that same Siege of Derry, — on the Protestant side, of 
course,— and our sympathies are all on that side; but we cannot 
forget that intolerance and persecution — especially in Ireland — are 
by no means exclusively Catholic errors and crimes. Who perse- 
cutes in Ireland now ? On what principle of Christian toleration 
are the poor man's pig and potatoes wrested from him to pay tithes 
to a church he abhors? We do hope the time is soon coming when 
man will no more persecute his brother for a difference of faith ; 
but that time will never be hastened by the publication of such 
books as the Siege of Derry." 



CHAPTER II. 

ANCESTORS.' — PARENTAGE.' — BIRTH. 

Origin of the Family— Old Captain Ezekiel Greeley— Zaccheus Greeley— Zaccheus 
the Second— Roughness and Tenacity of the Greeley race— Maternal Ancestors of 
Horace Greeley— John Woodburn— Character of Horace Greeley's Great-grand- 
mother— His Grandmother— Romantic Incident— Horace Greeley is born "as black 
as a chimney"- Comes to bis color— Succeeds to the name of Horace. 

The name of Greeley is an old and not uncommon one in New 
England. It is spelt Greeley, Greely, Greale, and Greele, but all 
who bear the name in this country trace their origin to the same 
source. 

The tradition is, that very early in the history of New England — 
probably as early as 1650 — three brothers, named Greeley, emigrat- 
ed from the neighborhood of Nottingham, England. One of them 
is supposed to have settled finally in Maine, another in Rhode 
Island, the third in Massachusetts. All the Greeleys in New Eng- 
land have descended from these three brothers, and the branch of 
the family with which we have to do, from him who settled in Mas- 
sachusetts. Respecting the condition and social rank of these broth- 
ers, their occupation and character, tradition is silent. But from 




II t__l 



■SIW;,; ;i[l^iS-- 



CAPTAIN EZEKIEL GREELEY. 29 

the fact that no coat-of-arms has been preserved or ever heard of 
by any member of the family, and from the occupation of the ma- 
jority of their descendants, it is plausibly conjectured that they 
were farmers of moderate means and of the middle class. 

Tradition further hints that the name of the brother who found 
a home in Massachusetts was Benjamin, that he was a farmer, that 
he lived in Haveril, a township bordering on the south-eastern cor- 
ner of New Hampshire, that he prospered there, and died respected 
by all who knew him at a good old age. So far, tradition. We 
now draw from the memory of individuals still living. 

The son of Benjamin Greeley was Ezekiel, "old Captain Ezekiel," 
who lived and greatly flourished at Hudson, New Hampshire, and is 
well remembered there, and in all the region round about. The cap- 
tain was not a military man. He was half lawyer, half farmer. He 
was a sharp, cunning, scheming, cool-headed, cold-hearted man, one 
who lived by his wits, who always got his cases, always succeeded in 
his plans, always prospered in his speculations, and grew rich without 
ever doing a day's work in his life. He is remembered by his grand- 
sons, who saw him in their childhood, as a black-eyed, black-haired, 
heavy-broAved, stern-looking man, of complexion almost as dark as 
that of an Indian, and not unhke an Indian in temper. " A cross 
old dog," " a hard old knot," " as cunning as Lucifer," are among 
the complimentary expressions bestowed upon him by his descend- 
ants. " All he had," says one, " was at the service of the rich, but 
he was hard upon the poor." " His religion was nominally Bap- 
tist," says another, "but really to get money." "He got all he 
could, and saved all he got," chimes in a third. He died, at the age 
of sixty-five, with " all his teeth sound," and worth three hundred 
acres of good land. He is spoken of with that sincere respect which, 
in New England, seems never to be denied to a very smart man, 
who succeeds by strictly legal means in acquiring property, however 
wanting in principle, however destitute of feeling, that man may 
be. Happily, the wife of old Captain Ezekiel was a gentler and 
better being than her husband. 

And, therefore, Zaccheus, the son of old Captain Ezekiel, was a 
gentler and better man than his father. Zaccheus inherited part of 
his father's land, and was a farmer all the days of his life. IJd was 
not, it appears, " too fond of work," though far more industrious 



30 ANCESTORS. PARENTAGE. BIRTH. 

than liis father ; a man -who took life easily, of strict integrity, 
kind-hearted, gentle-mannered, not ill to do in the world, but not 
what is called in New England '"fore-handed." He is remembered 
in the neighborhood where he lived chiefly for his extraordinary 
knowledge of the Bible. He could quote texts more readily, cor- 
rectly, and profusely than any of his neighbors, laymen or clergy- 
men. He had the reputation of knowing the whole Bible by heart. 
He was a Baptist ; and all who knew him unite in declaring that a 
worthier man never lived than Zaccheus Greeley. He had a large 
family, and lived to the age of ninety-five. 

His eldest son was named Zaccheus also, and he is the father of 
Horace Greeley. He is still living, and cultivates an ample domain 
in Erie County, Pennsylvania, acquired in part by his own arduous 
labors, in part by the labors of his second son, and in part by the 
liberality of his eldest son Horace. At this time, in the seventy- 
third year of his age, his form is as straight, his step as decided, 
his constitution nearly as firm, and his look nearly as young, as 
though he were in the prime of life. 

All the Greeleys that I have seen or heard described, are persons 
of marked and peculiar characters. Many of them are " cTiarac- 
tersy The word which perhaps best describes the quality for 
which they are distinguished is tenacity. They are, as a race, tena- 
cious of life, tenacious of opinions and preferences, of tenacious 
memory, and tenacious of their purposes. One member of the 
family died at the age of one hundred and twenty years; and a 
large proportion of the* early generations lived more than three 
score years and ten. Few of the name have been rich, but most 
have been persons of substance and respectability, acquiring their 
property, generally, by the cultivation of the soil, and a soil, too, 
which does not yield its favors to the sluggard. It is the boast 
of those members of the family who have attended to its geneal- 
ogy, that no Greeley was ever a prisoner, a pauper, or, worse than 
either, a tory ! Two of Horace Greeley's great uncles perished at 
Bennington, and he was fully justified in his assertion, made in the 
heat of the Roman controversy a few ygars ago, that he was " born 
of republican parentage, of an ancestry which participated vividly 
in the hopes and fears, the convictions and efforts of the American 
Ilftvolution." And he added : " We cannot disavow nor prove rec- 



TOUGHNESS OF THE GREELEY RACE. 31 

reant to the principles ou which that Eevolution was justified — od 
which only it can be justified. If adherence to these principles 
makes us ' the unmitigated enemy of Pius IX.,' we regret the en- 
mity, but cannot abjure our principles." 

The maiden name of Horace Greeley's mother was "Woodburn, 
Mary Woodburn, of Londonderry. 

The founder of the "Woodbm'n family in this country was John 
Woodburn, who emigrated from Londonderry in Ireland, to London- 
derry in New Hampshire, about the year 1725, seven years after the 
settlement of the original sixteen families. He came over with his 
brother David, who was drowned a few years after, leaving a fam- 
ily. Neither of the brothers actually served in the siege of Lon- 
donderry ; they were too young for that ; but they were both men 
of the true Londonderry stamp, men with a good stroke in their 
arms, a merry twinkle in their eyes, indomitable workers, and not 
more brave in fight than indefatigable in frolic ; fair-haired men 
like all their brethren, and gall-less. 

John "Woodburn obtained the usual grant of one hundred and 
twenty acres of land, besides the " out-lot and home-lot " before 
alluded to, and he took root in Londonderry and flourished. Ho 
was twice married, and was the father of two sons and nine daugh- 
ters, all of whom (as children did in those healthy times) lived to 
maturity, and all but one married. John Woodburu's second wife, 
from whom Horace Greeley is descended, was a remarkable wo- 
man. Mr. Greeley has borne this testimony to her worth and in- 
fluence, in a letter to a friend which some years ago escaped into 
print : " I think I am indebted for my first impulse toward intel- 
lectual acquirement and exertion to my mother's grandmother, who 
came out from Ireland among the first settlers in Londonderry. 
She must have been well versed in Irish and Scotch traditions, 
pretty well' informed and strong minded ; and my mother being left 
motherless when quite young, her grandmother exerted great influ- 
ence over her mental development. I was a third child, the two 
preceding having died young, and I presume my mother was the 
more attached to me on that ground, and the extreme feebleness of 
my constitution. My mind was early filled by her with the tradi- 
tions, ballads, and snatches of history she had learned from her 
grandmother, which, though conveying very distorted and incorrect 



32 ANCESTORS. PARENTAGE. BIRTH. 

ideas of history, yet served to awaken in me a thirst for knowledge 
and a lively interest in learning and history." John Woodbnrn died 
in 1780. Mi's. Woodburn, the subject of the passage just quoted, 
survived her husband many years, lived to see her children's grand- 
children, and to acquire throughout the neighborhood the familiar 
title of " Granny Woodburn." 

David "Woodburn, the grandfather of Horace Greeley, was the 
eldest son of John Woodburn, and the inheritor of his estate. He 
married Margaret Clark, a granddaughter of that Mrs. Wilson, the 
touchiug story of whose deliverance from pirates was long a favor- 
ite tale at the firesides of the early settlers of Kew Hampshire. 
In 1720, a ship containing a company of Irish emigrants bound to 
New England was captured by pirates, and while the ship was in 
their possession, and the fate of the passengers still undecided, Mrs. 
Wilson, one of the company, gave birth to her first child. The cir- 
cumstance so moved the pirate captain, who was himself a husband 
and a father, that he permitted the emigi'ants to pursue their voyage 
unharmed. He bestowed upon Mrs. Wilson some valuable pres- 
ents, among others a silk dress, pieces of which are still preserved 
among her descendants ; and he obtained from her a promise that 
she would call the infant by the name of his wife. The ship 
reached its destination in safety, and the day of its deliverance from 
the hands of the pirates was annually observed as a day of thanks- 
giving by the passengers for many years. Mrs. Wilson, after the 
death of her first husband, became the wife of James Clark, whose 
son John was the father of Mrs. David Woodburn, whose daugh- 
ter Mary was the mother of Horace Greeley. 

The descendants of John Woodburn are exceedingly numerous, 
and contribute largely, says Mr. Parker, the historian of London- 
derry, to the hundred thousand who are supposed to have de- 
scended from the early settlers of the town. The grandson of John 
Woodburn, a very genial and jovial gentleman, still owns and tills 
the land originally granted to the family. At the old homestead, 
about the year 1807, Zaccheus Greeley and Mary Woodburn were 
married. 

Zaccheus Greeley inherited nothing from his fjither, and Mary 
Woodburn received no more than the usual household portion from 
hers. Zaccheus, as the sons of New England farmers usually do, 



HORACE GREELEY IS BORN BLACK. 33 

or did in those days, went out to work as soon as he was old 
enough to do a day's work. He saved his earnings, and in his 
twenty -fifth year was the owner of a farm in the town of Amherst, 
Hillsborough county, New Hampshire. 

There, on the third of February, 1811, Horace Greeley was born. 
He is the third of seven children, of whom the two elder died be- 
fore he was born, and the four younger are still living. 

The mode of his entrance upon the stage of the world was, to 
say the least of it, unusual. The effort was almost too much for 
him, and, to use the language of one who was present, " he came 
into the world as black as a chimney." There were no signs of 
life. He uttered no cry ; he made no motion ; he did not breathe. 
But the little discolored stranger had articles to write, and was not 
permitted to escape his destiny. In this alarming crisis of his exist- 
ence, a kind-hearted and experienced aunt came to his rescue, and 
by arts, which to kind-hearted and experienced aunts are well 
known, but of which the present chronicler remains in ignorance, 
the boy was brought to life. He soon began to breathe ; then he 
began to blush ; and by the time he had attained the age of twenty 
minutes, lay on his mother's arm, a red and smihng infant. 

In due time, the boy received the name of Horace. There had 
been another little Horace Greeley before him, but he had died in 
infancy, and his parents wished to preserve in their second son a 
living memento of their first. The name was not introduced into 
the family from any partiality on the part of his parents for the 
Koman poet, but because his father had a relative so named, and 
because the mother had read the name in a book and liked the 
sound of it. The sound of it, however, did not often regale the 
maternal ear ; for, in New England, where the name of the cor.rtly 
satirist is frequently given, its household diminutive is "Hod;" and 
by that e]^ant monosyllable the boy was commonly called among 
his juvenile friends. 

2* 



CHAPTER III. 

EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

The Village of Amherst— Character of the adjacent country— The Greeley farnr— 
The Tribune in the room in wlrich its Editor was born— Horace learns to read- 
Book up-side down — Goes to school in Londonderry — A district school forty 
years ago— Horace as a young orator— Has a mania for spelling hard words— Gets 
great glory at the spellin-g school — Recollections of his surviving schoolfellows — 
His future eminence foretold — Delicacy of ear — Early choice of a trade — His 
courage and timidity— Goes to school in Bedford— A favorite among his school- 
fellows—His early fondness for the village newspaper— Lies in ambush for the 
post-rider who brought it— Scours the country for books— Project of sending him 
to an academy— The old sea-captain— Horace as a farmer's boy— Let us do our 
stint first- His way of fisliing. 

Amheest is the county town of Hillsborough, one of the three 
counties of Kew Hampshire which are bounded on the South by 
the State of Massachusetts. It is forty-two miles north-west of 
Boston. 

The village of Amherst is a pleasant place. Seen from the summit 
of a distant hill, it is a white dot in the middle of a level plain, en- 
circled by cultivated and gently-sloping hills. On a nearer ap- 
proach the traveler perceives that it is a cluster of white houses, 
looking as if they had alighted among the trees and might take to 
wing again. On entering it he finds himself in a very pretty vil- 
lage, built round an ample green and shaded by lofty trees. It con- 
tains three churches, a printing-office, a court-house, a jail, a 
tavern^ half a dozen stores, an exceedingly minute watchmaker's 
shop, and a hundred private houses. There is not a human being 
to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the twittering of birds 
overhead, and the distant whistle of a locomotive, whicU in those 
remote regions seems to make the silence audible. The utter 
silence and the deserted aspect of the older villages in New Eng- 
land are remarkable. In the morning and evening there is 
some appearance of life in Amherst ; but in the hours of the day 
when the men are at work, the women busy with their household 
afiairs, and the children at school, the visitor may sit at the win- 




I tl I 



II if -; 



AMHERST. 35 

da . if the village tavern for an hour at a time and not see a living 
creibiuare. Occasionally a pedler, with sleigh bells round his horse, 
goes jingling by. Occasionally a farmer's wagon drives up to one of 
the stores. Occasionally a stage, rocking in its leather suspenders, 
stops at the post-office for a moment, and then rocks away again. 
Occasionally a doctor passes in a very antiquated gig. Occasion- 
ally a cock crows, as though he were tired of the dead silence. A 
New York village, a quarter the size and wealth of Amherst, makes 
twice its noise and bustle. Forty years ago, however, when Horace 
Greeley used to come to the stores there, it was a place of some- 
what more importance and more busiuess than it is now, for Man- 
chester and IsTashua have absorbed many of the little streams of 
traffic which used to flow towards the county town. It is a curious 
evidence of the stationary character of the place, that the village 
paper, which had fifteen hundred subscribers when Horace Greeley 
was three years old, and learned to read from it, has fifteen hundred 
subscribers, and no more, at this moment. It bears the same name 
it did then, is published by the same person, and adheres to the 
same party. 

The township of Amherst contains about eight square miles of some- 
what better land than the land of New England generally is. "Wheat 
cannot be grown on it to advantage, but it yields fair returns of 
rye, oats, potatoes, Indian corn, and young men : the last-named of 
which commodities forms the chief article of export. The farmers 
have to contend against hills, rocks, stones innumerable, sand, 
marsh, and long winters ; but a hundred years of tillage have sub- 
dued these obstacles in part, and the people generally enjoy a safe 
and moderate prosperity. Yet severe is their toil. To see them 
ploughing along the sides of those steep rocky liills, the plough 
creaking, the oxen groaning, the little boy-driver leaping from sod 
to sod, as an Alpine boy is supposed to leap from crag to crag, the 
ploughman wrenching the plough round the rocks, boy and man 
every minute or two uniting in a prolonged and agonizing yell for 
the panting beasts to stoj), when the plough is caught by a hidden 
rook too large for it to overturn, and the solemn slowness with 
which the procession winds, and creaks, and groans along, gives to 
the languid citizen, who chances to pass by, a new idea of hard 
work, and a new sense of the happiness of his lot. 



36 EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

The farm owned by Zacclieus Greeley when his sou Horace was 
born, was four or five miles from the village of Amherst. It con- 
sisted of eighty acres of land — heavy land to till — rocky, moist, 
and uneven, worth then eight hundred dollars, now two thousand. 
The house, a small, unpainted, but substantial and well-built farm- 
bouse, stood, and still stands, upon a ledge or platform, half way 
up a high, steep, and rocky hill, commanding an extensive and al- 
most panoramic view of the surrounding country. In whatever 
direction the boy may have looked, he saw rock. Eock is the 
feature of the landscape. There is rock in the old orchard behind 
the house ; rocks peep out from the grass in the pastures; there is 
rock along the road ; rock on the sides of the hills ; rock on their 
summits; rock in the valleys; rock in the woods ;^rock, rock, 
everywhere rock. And yet the country has not a barren look. I 
should call it a serious looking country ; one that would be congenial 
to grim covenanters and exiled round-heads. The prevailing colors 
are dark, even in the brightest month of the year. The pine woods, 
the rock, the shade of the hill, the color of the soil, are all dark 
and serious. It is a still, unfrequented region. One may ride along 
the road upon which the house stands, for many a mile, without 
passing a single vehicle. The turtles hobble across the road fear- 
less of the crushing wheel. If any one washed to know the full 
meaning of the word country^ as distinguished from the word toicn^ 
he need do no more than ascend the hOl on which Horace Greeley 
saw the light, and look around. 

Yet, the voice of the city is heard even there ; the opinions of 
the city influence there ; for, observe, in the very room in which 
our hero was born, on a table which stands where, in other days, a 
bed stood, we recognize, among the heap of newspapers, the well- 
known heading of the Weekly Teebune. 

Such was the character of the region in which Horace Greeley 
passed the greater part of the first seven years of his life. His 
father's neighbors were all hard-working farmers — men who work- 
ed their own farms — who were nearly equal in wealth, and to whom 
the idea of social inequality, founded upon an inequahty in possess- 
ions, did not exist, even as an idea. Wealth and want were alike 
unknown. It was a community of plain people, who had derived 
all their book-knowledge from the district school, and depended 



HORACE LEARNS TO READ. 37 

upon the village newspaper for their knowledge of the world with- 
out. There were no heretics among them. All the people either 
cordially embraced, or undoubtingly assented to the faith called 
Orthodox, and all of them attended, more or less regularly, the 
churches in which that faith was expounded. 

The first great peril of his existence escaped, the boy grew apace, 
and passed through the minor and ordinary dangers of infancy with- 
out having his equanimity seriously disturbed. He was a " quiet 
and peaceable child," reports his father, and though far from robust, 
suffered little from actual sickness. 

To say that Horace Greeley, from the earliest months of his exist- 
ence, manifested signs of extraordinary inteUigence, is only to repeat 
what every biographer asserts of his hero, and every mother of her 
child. Yet, common-place as it is, the truth must be told. Horace 
Greeley did^ as a very young child, manifest signs of extraordinary 
inteUigence, He took to learning with the promptitude and in- 
stinctive, irrepressible love, with which a duck is said to take to the 
water. His first instructor was his mother ; and never was there 
a mother better calculated to awaken the mind of a child, and 
keep it awake, than Mrs. Greeley. 

Tall, muscular, well-formed, with the strength of a man without 
his coarseness, active in her habits, not only capable of hard work, 
but delighting in it, with a perpetual overflow of animal spirits, an 
exhaustless store of songs, ballads and stories, and a boundless, ex- 
uberant good will towards all living things, Mrs. Greeley was the 
life of the house, the favorite of the neighborhood, the natural 
friend and ally of children ; whatever she did she did " with a will." 
She was a great reader, and remembered all she read. "She 
worked," says one of my informants, " in doors and out of door, 
could out-rake any man in the town, and could load the hay-wag- 
ons as fast and as well as her husband. She hoed in the garden; 
she labored in the field ; and while doing more than the work of an 
ordinary man, and an ordinary woman combined, would laugh and 
sing all day long, and tell stories all the evening." 

To these stories the boy listened greedily, as he sat on the floor 
at her feet, while she spun and talked with equal energy. They 
" served," says Mr. Greeley, in a passage already quoted, " to awaken 
hi me a thirst for knowledge, and a lively interest in learning and 



38 Ni^RLY CHILDHOOD. 

liistory." Think of it, you word-mongering, gerund-grinding 
teachers who delight in signs and symbols, and figures and " facts," 
and feed little children's souls on the dry, innutricious husks of 
knowledge ; and think of it, you play-abhorring, fiction-forbidding 
parents ! Awaken the interest in learning, and the tMrst for knowl- 
edge, and there is no predicting what may or what may not result 
from it. Scarcely a man, distinguished for the supremacy or the 
beauty of his immortal part, has written the history of his childhood, 
without recording the fact, that the celestial fire was first kindled 
in his soul by means similar to those which awakened an " interest 
in learning" and a " thirst for knowledge" in the mind of Horace 
Greeley. 

Horace learned to read before he had learned to talk ; that is, 
before he could pronounce the longer words. No one regularly 
taught him. When he was little more than two years old, he began 
to pore over the Bible, opened for his entertainment on the fioor, 
and examine with curiosity the newspaper given him to play with. 
He cannot remember a time when he could not read, nor can any 
one give an account of the process by which he learned, except that 
he asked questions incessantly, first about the pictures in the news- 
paper, then about the capital letters, then about the smaller ones, 
and finally about the words and sentences. At three years of age 
he could read easily and correctly any of the books prepared for 
children ; and at four, any book whatever. But he was not satisfied 
with overcoming the ordinary difficulties of reading. Allowing 
that nature gives to every child a certain amount of mental force to 
be used in acquiring the art of reading, Horace had an over- 
plus of that force, which he employed in learning to read with his 
book in positions which increased the difficulty of the feat. All the 
friends and neighbors of his early childhood, in reporting him a 
prodigy unexampled, adduce as the unanswerable and clinchicg 
proof of the fact, that, at the age of four years, he could read 
any book in whatever position it might be placed, — rigt t-side up, 
up-side down, or sidewise. 

His third winter Horace spent at the house of his grandfather, 
David Woodburn, in Londonderry, attended the district school 
there, and distinguished himself greatly. He had no right to at- 
tend the Londonderry school, and the people of the rural districts 



A DISTRICT SCHOOL FORTY YEARS AGO. 39 

41*6 apt to be strenuous upon the point of not admitting to their 
school pupils from other towns ; but Horace was an engaging 
child; "every one liked the little, white-headed fellow," says a 
surviving member of the school committee, "and so we favored 
Mm." 

A district school — and what was a district school forty years 
ago ? Horace Greeley never attended any but a district school, and 
it concerns us to know what manner of place it was, and what 
was its routine of exercises. 

The school-house stood in an open place, formed (usually) by the 
crossing of roads. It was very small, and of one story ; contained 
one apartment, had two windows on each side, a small door in the 
gable end that faced the road, and a low door-step before it. It 
was the thing called house, in its simplest form. But for its roof, 
windows, and door, it had been a box, large, rough, and nnpainted. 
"Within and without, it was destitute of anything ornamental. It 
was not enclosed by a fence ; it was not shaded by a tree. The sun 
in summer, the winds in winter, had their will of it : there was no- 
thing to avert the fury of either. The log school-houses of the pre- 
vious generation were picturesque and comfortable ; those of the 
present time are as prim, neat, and orderly (and as elegant some- 
times) as the cottage of an old maid who enjoys an annuity; but the 
school-house of forty years ago had an aspect singularly forlorn and 
uninviting. It was built for an average of thirty pupils, but it fre- 
quently contained fifty ; and then the little school-room was a com- 
pact mass of young humanity : the teacher had to dispense with 
his table, and was lucky if he could find room for his chair. The 
side of the apartment opposite the door was occupied, chiefly, by a 
vast fireplace, four or five feet wide, where a carman's load of wood 
could burn in one prodigious fire. Along the sides of the room was 
a low, slanting shelf, which served for a desk to those who wrote, 
and against the sharp edge of which the elder pupils leaned when 
they were not writing. The seats were made of " slabs," inverted, 
supported on sticks, and without backs. The elder pupils sat along 
the side^ of the room, — the girls on one side, the boys on the other ; 
the youngest sat nearest the fire, where they were as much too 
warm as those who sat near the door were too cold. In a school 
of forty pupils, there would be a dozen who were grown up, mar- 



40 EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

riageable young men and women. Not unfrequentl> married men, 
and occasionally married women, attended school in the winter. 
Among the younger pupils, there were usually a dozen who could 
not read, and half as many who did not know the alphabet. The 
teacher was, perhaps, one of the farmer's sons of the district, who 
knew a little more than his elder pupils, and only a little ; or he 
was a student who was working his way through college. His 
wages were those of a farm-laborer, ten or twelve dollars a month 
and his board. He boarded " round^'' i. e. he lived a few days at 
each of the houses of the district, stopping longest at the most 
agreeable place. The grand quahfication of a teacher was the abil- 
ity " to do" any sum in the arithmetic. To know arithmetic was to 
be a learned man. Generally, the teacher was very young, some- 
times not more than sixteen years ol& ; but, if he possessed the due 
expertness at figures, if he could read the Bible without stumbling 
over the long words, and without mispronouncing more than two 
thirds of the proper names, if he could write well enough to set a 
decent copy, if he could mend a pen, if he had vigor enough of 
character to assert his authority, and strength enough of arm to 
maintain it, he would do. The school began at nine in the morn- 
ing, and the arrival of that hour was announced by the teacher's 
rapping upon the window frame with a ruler. The boys, and the 
girls too, came tumbling in, rosy and glowing, from their snow- 
balling and sledding. The first thing done in school was reading. 
The " first class," consisting of that third of the pupils who could 
read best, stood on the floor and read round once, each individual 
reading about half a page of the English Eeader. Then the second 
class. Then the third. Last of all, the youngest children said their 
letters. By that time, a third of the morning was over ; and then 
the reading began again ; for public opinion demanded of the teach- 
er that he should hear every pupil read four times a day, twice in 
the morning and twice in the afternoon. Those who were not in 
the class reading, were employed, or were supposed to be employed, 
in ciphering or writing. When they wanted to write, they went to 
the teacher with their writing-book and pen, and he set a copy, — 
" Procrastination is the thief of time," " Contentment is a virtue," 
or some other wise saw, — and mended the pen. "When they were 
puzzled with a "sum," they went to the teacher to have it elucidat- 



THE SPELLING SCHOOL. 41 

ed. They seem to have written and ciphered as much or as little 
as they chose, at what time they chose, and in what manner. In 
some schools there were classes in arithmetic and regular instruc- 
tion in writing, and one class in grammar ; but such schools, forty 
years ago, were rare. The exercises of the morning were concluded 
with a general spell^ the teacher giving out the words from a spell- 
ing-book, and the pupils spelling them at the top of their voices. 
At noon the school was dismissed ; at one it was summoned again, 
to go through, for the next three hours, precisely the same routine 
as that of the morning. In this rude way the last generation of 
children learned to read, write, and cipher. But they learned 
something more in those rude cohool-houses. They learned obedi- 
ence. They were tamed and disciplined. The means employed 
were extremely unscientific, but the thing was done! The means, 
in fact, were merely a ruler, and what was called, in contradistinc- 
tion to that milder weapon, " the heavy gad ;" by which express- 
ion was designated five feet of elastic sapling of one year's growth. 
These two implements were plied vigorously and often. Girls got 
their full share of them. Girls old enough to be wives were no 
more exempt than the young men old enough to marry them, who 
sat on the other side of the schoolroom. It was thought, that if a 
youth of either sex was not too old to do wrong, neither he nor she 
was too old to suffer the consequences. In some districts, a teacher 
was valued in proportion to his severity ; and if he were backward 
in applying the ferule and the " gad," the parents soon began to be 
uneasy. They thought he had no energy, and inferred that the 
children could not be learning much. In the district schools, then, 
of forty years ago, all the pupils learned to read and to obey ; most 
of them learned to write ; many acquired a competent knowledge 
of figures ; a few learned the rudiments of grammar ; and if any 
learned more than these, it was generally due to their unassisted 
and unencouraged exertions. There were no school-libraries at that 
time. The teachers usually possessed little general information, and 
the little they did possess was not often made to contribute to the 
mental nourishment of their pupils. 

On one of the first benches of the Londonderry school house, neai 
the fire, we may imagine the little white-headed fellow, whom 
everybody liked, to be seated during the winter of 1814-15. He 



4^ EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

was eager to go to school. When the snow lay on the ground in 
drifts too deep for him to wade through, one of his aunts, who still 
lives to tell the story, would take him up on her shoulders and 
carry him to the door. He was the possessor that winter, of three 
books, the " Columbian Orator," Morse's Geography, and a spell- 
ing book. From the Columbian Orator, he learned many pieces by 
heart, and among others, that very celebrated oration which, prob- 
ably the majority of the inhabitants of this nation have at some pe- 
riod of their lives been able to repeat, beginning, 

" You 'd scarce expect one of my age, 
To speak in public on the stage." 

One of his schoolfellows has a vivid remembrance of Horace's re- 
citing this piece before the whole school in Londonderry, before he 
was old enough to utter the words plainly. He had a lisping, 
whining little voice, says my informant, but spoke with the utmost 
confidence, and greatly to the amusement of the school. He spoke 
the piece so often in public and private, as to become, as it were, 
identified with it, as a man who knows one song, suggests that 
song by his presence, and is called upon to sing it wherever he 
goes. 

It is a pity that no one thinks of the vast importance of those 
" Orators " and reading books which the children read and wear 
out in reading, learning parts of them by heart, and repeating 
them over and over, till they become fixed in the memory and 
embedded in the character forever. And it is a pity that those 
books should contain so much false sentiment, inflated language, 
Buncombe oratory, and other trash, as they generally do ! To 
compile a series of Beading Books for the common schools of 
this country, were a task for a conclave of the wisest and best men 
and women that ever lived ; a task worthy of them, both from its 
difficulty and the incalculable extent of its possible results. 

Spelling was the passion of the little orator during the first win- 
ters of his attendance at school. He spelt incessantly in school and 
out of school. He would lie on the floor at his grandfather's house, 
for hours at a time, spelling hard words, all that he could find m 
the Bible and the few other books within his reach. It was the 



RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS SURVIVING SCHOOLFELLOWS. 43 

standing amusement of the family to try and puzzle the boy with 
words, and no one remembers succeeding. Spelling^ moreover, 
was one of the great points of the district schools in those days, 
and he who could out-spell, or, as the phrase was, " spell down " 
the whole school, ranked second only to him who surpassed the 
rest in arithmetic. Those were the palmy days of the spelling- 
school. The pupils assembled once a week, voluntarily, at the 
school-house, chose " sides," and contended with one another long 
and earnestly for the victory. Horace, young as he was, was eager 
to attend the spelling school, and was never known to injure the 
"side" on which he was chosen by missing a word, and it soon 
became a prime object at the spelling-school to get the first choice, 
because that enabled the lucky side to secure the powerful aid of 
Horace Greeley. He is well remembered by his companions in or- 
thography. They delight still to tell of the little fellow, in the 
long evenings, falling asleep in his place, and when it came his 
turn, his neighbors gave him an anxious nudge, and he would wake 
instantly, spell off his word, and drop asleep again in a moment. 

Horace went to school three terms in Londonderry, spending 
part of each year at home. I will state as nearly as possible in 
their own words, what his school-fellows there remember of him. 

One of them can just recall him as a very small boy with a head as 
white as snow, who " was almost always up head in his class, and took 
it so much to heart when he did happen to lose his place, that Jie 
would cry bitterly ; so that some boys when they had gained the right 
to get above him, declined the honor, because it hurt Horace's 
feelings so." He was the pet of the school. Those whom he used 
to excel most signally liked him as well as the rest. He was an 
active, bright, eager boy, but not fond of play, and seldom took 
part in the sports of the other boys. One muster day, this inform- 
ant remembers, the clergyman of Londonderry, who had heard 
glowing accounts of Horace's feats at school, took him on his lap in 
the field, questioned him a long time, tried to puzzle him with hard 
words, and concluded by saying with strong emphasis to one of the 
boy's relatives, " Mark my words, Mr. Woodburn, that boy was not 
made for nothing." 

Another, besides confirming the above, adds, that Horace was 
in some respects exceedingly brave, and in others exceedingly tim 



44 EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

orous. He was never afraid of the dark, could not be frightened 
by ghost-stories, never was abashed in speaking or reciting, waa 
not to be overawed by supposed superiority of knowledge or rank, 
would talk up to the teacher and question his decision with perfect 
freedom, though never in a spirit of impertinence. Yet he could 
not stand up to a boy and fight. "When attacked, he would nei- 
ther fight nor run away, but " stand still and take it." His ear 
was so delicately constructed that any loud noise like the report of 
a gun would almost throw him into convulsions. If a gun were 
about to be discharged, he would either run away as fast as his 
slender legs carry him, or else would throw himself upon the 
ground and stuff grass into his ears to deaden the dreadful noise. 
On the fourth of July, when the people of Londonderry inflamed 
their patriotisnaHby a copious consumption of gunpowder, Horace 
would run into the woods to get beyond the sound of the cannons 
and pistols. It was at Londonderry, and about his fourth year, that 
Horace began the habit of reading or book-devouring, which he 
never lost during all the years of his boyhood, youth, and appren- 
ticeship, and relinquished only when he entered that most exacting 
of all professions, the editorial. The gentleman whose reminis- 
cences I am now recording, tells me that Horace in his fifth and 
sixth years, would lie under a tree on his face, reading hour after 
hour, completely absorbed in his book ; and " if no one stumbled 
over him or stirred him up," would read on, unmindful of dinner 
time and sun-set, as long as he could see. It was his delight in 
books that made him, when little more than an infant, determine 
to be a printer, as printers, he supposed, were they who made books. 
" One day," says this gentleman, " Horace and I went to a black- 
smith's shop, and Horace watched the process of horse-shoeing with 
much interest. The blacksmith observing how intently he looked 
on, said, ' You 'd better come with me and learn the trade.' ' No,' 
said Horace in his prompt decided way, ' I 'm going to be a printer.' 
He was then six years old, and very small for his age ; and this pos- 
itive choice of a career by so diminutive a piece of humanity^ 
mightily amused the by-standers. The blacksmith used to tell the 
story with great glee when Horace icas a printer, and one of some 
note. 
Another gentleman, who went to school with Horace at London- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS SURVIVING SCHOOLFELLOWS. 45 

deny, writes : — " I think I attended school with Horace Greeley 
two summers and two winters, but have no recollection of seeing 
him except at the school-house. He was an exceedingly mild, quiet 
and inoffensive child, entirely devoted to his books at school. It 
used to be said in the neighborhood, that he was the same out of 
school, and that his parents were obliged to secrete his books to 
prevent his injuring himself by over study. His devotion to his 
books, together with the fact of his great advancement beyond 
others of his age in the few studies then pursued in the district 
school, rendered him notorious in that part of the town. He was 
regarded as a prodigy, and his name was a household world. He 
was looked upon as standing alone, and entirely unapproachable by 
any of the little mortals around him. Eeading, parsing, and spelling, 
are the only branches of learning which I remember him in, or in 
connection with which his name was at that time mentioned, 
though he might have given some attention to writing and arith- 
metic, which completed the circle of studies in the district school at 
that time ; but in the three branches first named he excelled all, even 
in the winter school, which was attended by several young men and 
women, some of whom became teachers soon after. Though 
mild and quiet he was ambitious in the school ; to be at the head 
of his class, and be accounted the best scholar in school, seemed 
to be prominent objects with him, and to furnish strong motives to 
effort. I can recall but one instance of his missing a word in the 
spelling class. The classes went on to the floor to spell, and he al- 
most invariably stood at the head of the 'first class,' embracing 
the most advanced scholars. He stood there at the time referred 
to, and by missing a word, lost his place, which so grieved him that 
he wept like a punished child. While I knew him he did not en- 
gage with other children in the usual recreations and amuse- 
ments of the school grounds ; as soon as the school was dismissed at 
noon, he would start for home, a distance of half a mile, with all 
his books ujder his arm, including the New Testament, Webster's 
Spelling Book, English Reader, &c., and would not return till the 
last moment of intermission ; at least such was his practice in the 
summer time. With regard to his aptness in spelling, it used to be 
said that the minister of the town. Rev. Mr. McGregor, once at- 
tempted to find a word or name in the Bible which he could not 



46 EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

spell correctly, but failed to do so. I always supposed, however, 
that this was an exaggeration, for he could not have been more than 
seven years old at the time this was told. My father soon after re- 
moved to another town thirty miles distant, and I lost sight of the 
famOy entirely, Horace and all, though I always remembered the 
gentle, flaxen-haired schoolmate with much interest, and often won- 
dered what became of him ; and when the ' Log Cabin ' appeared, 
I took much pains to assm-e myself whether this Horace Greeley 
was the same little Horace grown up, and found it was." 

From his sixth year, Horace resided chiefly at his father's house. 
He was now old enough to walk to the nearest school-house, a mila 
and a half from his home. He could read fluently, spell any word 
in the language ; had some knowledge of geography, and a little of 
arithmetic ; had read the Bible through from Genesis to Kevela- 
tions ; had read the Pilgrim's Progress with intense interest, and 
dipped into every other book he could lay his hands on. From his 
sixth to his tenth year, he lived, worked, read and went to school, 
in Amherst and the adjoining town of Bedford. Those who were 
then his neighbors and schoolmates there, have a lively recollection 
of the boy and his ways. 

Henceforth, he went to school only in the winter. Again he at- 
tended a school which he had no right to attend, that of Bedford, 
and his attendance was not merely permitted, but sought. The 
school-committee expressly voted, that no pupils from other towns 
should be received at their school, except Horace Greeley alone ; 
and, on entering the school, he took his place, young as he was, at 
the head of it, as it were, by acclamation. Nor did his superiority 
ever excite envy or enmity. He bore his honors meekly. Every 
one liked the boy, and took pride in his superiority to themselves. 
All his schoolmates agree in this, that Horace never had an ene- 
my at school. 

The snow lies deep on those New Hampshire hills in the winter, 
and presents a serious obstacle to the younger children in their way 
to the school-house ; nor is it the rarest of disasters, even now, for 
children to be lost in a drift, and frozen to death. (Such a calam- 
ity happened two years ago, within a mile or two of the old Gree- 
ley homestead.) " Many a morning," says one of the neighbors — 
then a stout schoolboy, now a sturdy farmer— "many a morning I 



HIS EARLY FONDNESS FOR THE VILLAGE NEWSPAPER. 47 

have carried Horace on my back through the drifts to school, and 
put my own mittens over his, to keep his little hands from freez- 
ing." He adds, " I lived at the next house, and I and my brothers 
often went down in the evening to play with him ; but he never 
would play with us till he had got his lessons. We could neither 
coax nor force him to." He remembers Horace as a boy of a bright 
and active nature, but neither playful nor merry ; one who would 
utter acute and " old-fashioned" remarks, and make more fun for 
others than he seemed to enjoy himself. 

His fondness for reading grew with the growth of his mind, till 
it amounted to a passion. His father's stock of books was small 
indeed. It consisted of a Bible, a " Confession of Faith," and per- 
haps, all told, twenty volumes beside ; and they by no means of a 
kind calculated to foster a love of reading in the mind of a little 
boy. But a weeMy newspaper came to the house from the vijlage 
of Amherst ; and, except his mother's tales, that newspaper proba- 
bly had more to do with the opening of the boy's mind and the 
tendency of his opinions, than anything else. The family well re- 
member the eagerness with which he anticipated its coming. Pa- 
per-day was the brightest of the week. An hour before the post- 
rider was expected, Horace would walk down the road to meet 
him, bent on having the first read; and when he had got possession 
of the precious sheet, he would hurry with it to some secluded 
place, lie down on the grass, and greedily devour its contents. The 
paper was called (and is still) the Farmer's CaMnet. It was mildly 
Whig in politics. The selections were religious, agricultural, and 
miscellaneous ; the editorials few, brief, and amiable ; its summary 
of news scanty in the extreme. But it was the only bearer of tid- 
ings from the Great World. It connected the little brown house on 
the rocky hill of Amherst with the general life of mankind. The 
boy, before he could read himself, and before he could understand 
the meaning of war and bloodshed, doubtless heard his father read 
in it of the triumphs and disasters of the Second War with Great 
Britain, and of the rejoicings at the conclusion of peace. He him- 
self may have read of Decatur's gallantry in the war with Algiers, 
of Wellington's victory at Waterloo, of Napoleon's fretting away 
his life on the rock of St. Helena, of Monroe's inauguration, of the 
dismantling of the flee.^s on the great l^kes, of the progress of tho 



48 EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

Erie Canal project, of Jackson's inroads into Florida, and the subse- 
quent cession of that province to the United States, of the first 
meeting of Congress in the Capitol, of the passage of the Missouri 
Compromise. During the progress of the various commercial trea- 
ties with the States of Europe, which were negotiated after the 
conclusion of the general peace, the whole theory, practice, and his- 
tory of commercial intercourse, were amply discussed in Congress 
and the newspapers ; and the mind of Horace, even in his ninth 
year, was mature enough to take some interest in the subject, and 
derive some impressions from its discussion. The Farmers Cabinet^ 
which brought all these and countless othei ideas and events to 
bear on the education of the boy, is now one of the thousand pa- 
pers with which ^the Tribune exchanges. 

Horace scoured the country for books. Books were books in that 
remote and secluded region ; and when he had exhausted the col- 
lections of the neighbors, he carried the search into the neighbor- 
ing towns. I am assured that there was not one readable book 
within seven miles of his father's house, which Horace did not bor- 
row and read during his residence in Amherst. He was never 
without a book. As soon, says one of his sisters, as he was dressed 
in the morning, he flew to his book. He read every minute of the 
day which he could snatch from his studies at school, and on the 
farm. He would be so absorbed in his reading, that when his pa- 
rents required his services, it was like rousing a heavy sleeper from 
his deepest sleep, to awaken Horace to a sense of things around 
him and an apprehension of the duty required of him. And even 
then he clung to his book. He would go reading to the cellar and 
the cider-barrel, reading to the wood-pile, reading to the garden, 
reading to the neighbors ; and pocketing his book only long enough 
to perform his errand, he would fall to reading again the instant his 
mind and his hands were at liberty. 

He kept in a secure place an ample supply of pine knots, and as 
soon as it was dark he would light one of these cheap and brilliant 
illuminators, put it on the back-log in the spacious fire-place, pile 
up his school books and his reading books on the floor, lie down on 
his back on the hearth, with his head to the fire and his feet coiled 
away out of the reach of stumblers ; and there lie would lie and 
read all through the long winter evenings, silent, motionless, dead 



SCOURS THE COUNTRY FOR BOOKS. 4d 

to the woi'ld around him, alive only to the world to which he was 
transported by liis book. Visitors would come in, chat a while, 
and go away, without knowing he was present, and without his 
being aware of their coming and going. It was a nightly struggle 
to get him to bed. His father required his services early in the 
morning, and was therefore desirous that he should go to bed early 
in the ef ening. He feared, also, for the eye-sight of the boy, read- 
ing so many hours with his head in the fire and by the flaring, flicker- 
ing light of a pine knot. And so, by nine o'clock, his father would 
iegin the task of recalling the absent mind from its roving, and 
rousing the prostrate and dormant body. And when Horace at 
length had been forced to beat a retreat, he kept his younger 
brother awake by telling over to him in bed what he had read, and 
by reciting the school lessons of the next day. His brother was by 
no means of a literary turn, and was prone — much to the chagrin 
of Horace — to fall asleep long before the lessons were all said and 
the tales all told. 

So entire and pasoionate a devotion to the acquisition of knowl- 
edge in one so young, would be remarkable in any circumstances. 
But when the situation of the boy is considered — living in a remote 
andi^er^/ rural district — ^few books accessible — few literary persons re- 
siding near — the school contributing scarcely anything to his mental 
nourishment — no other boy in the neighborhood manifesting any 
particular interest in learning — the people about him all engaged in 
a rude and hard struggle to extract the means of subsistence from 
a rough and rocky soil — such an intense, absorbing, and persistent 
love of knowledge as that exhibited by Horace Greeley, must be 
accounted very extraordinary. 

That his neighbors so accounted it, they are still eager to attest. 
Continually the wonder grew, that one small head should carry all 
he knew. 

There were not wanting those who thought that superior means 
of instruction ought to be placed within the reach of so superior 
a child. I have a somewhat vague, but very positive, and fully con- 
firmed story, of a young man just returned from college to his 
father's house in Bedford, who fell in with Horace, and was so 
struck with his capacity and attainments that he offered to send 
him to an academy in a neighboring town, and bear all the ex- 

3 



50' EARLY CHILDHOOD.' 

pens63 of his maintenance and tuition. But liis mother could not 
let him go, his father needed his assistance at home, and the boy 
himself is said not to have favored the scheme. A wise, a fortunate 
choice, I cannot help believing. That academy onay have been an 
institution where boys received more good than harm — where real 
Tcnowledge was imparted — where souls were inspired with the love 
of high and good things, and inflamed with an ambition to run a 
high and good career — where boys did not lose all their modesty 
and half their sense — where chests were expanded — where 
cheeks were ruddy — where limbs were active— where stomachs 
were peptic. It may have been. But if it was, it was a different 
academy from many whose praises are in all the newspapers. It 
was better not to run the risk. If that young man's offe^ had been 
accepted, it is a question whether the world would have ever heard 
of Horace Greeley. Probably his fragile body would not have sus- 
tained the brain-stimulating treatment which a forward and eager 
boy generally receives at an academy. 

A better friend, though not a better meaning one, was a jovial 
neighbor, a sea-captain, who had taken to farming. The captain 
had seen the world, possessed the yarn-spinning faculty, and be- 
sides, being himself a walking traveller's library, had a considerable 
collection of books, which he freely lent to Horace. His salute, on 
meeting the boy, was not ' How do you do, Horace ?' but ' Well, 
Horace, what's the capital of Turkey V or, ' "Who fought the battle 
of Eutaw Springs?' or, 'How do you spell Encyclopedia, or Kamt- 
schatka, or Nebuchadnezzar V The old gentleman used to question 
the boy upon the contents of tho books he had lent him, and was 
again and again surprised at the fluency, the accuracy, and the full- 
ness of his replies. The captain was of service to Horace in vari- 
ous ways, and he is remembered by the family with gi-atitude. To 
Horace's brother he once gave a sheep and a load of hay to keep it 
on during the winter, thus adapting his benefactions to the various 
tastes of his juvenile friends. 

A clergyman, too, is spoken of, who took great interest in Horace, 
and gave him instruction in grammar, often giving the boy er- 
roneous information to test his knowledge. Horace, he used to 
say, could never be shaken on a point which he had once clearly 
understood, but would stand to his opinion, and defend it against 
anybody and everybody — teacher, pastor, or public opinion. 



HIS WAT OF FISHING. 51 

In New England, the sons of farmers begin to make themselves 
useful almost as soon as they can walk. They feed the chickens, 
they drive the cows, they bring in wood and water, and soon come 
to perform all those offices which come under the denomiation of 
" chores.'''' By the time they are eight or nine years old, they fre- 
quently have tasks assigned them, which are called " stints," and 
not till they have done their stint are they at liberty to play. 
The reader may think that Horace's devotion to literature would 
naturally enough render the farm work distasteful to him ; anc' if 
he had gone to the academy, it might. I am bound, however, to 
say that all who knew him in boyhood, agree that he was not more 
devoted to study in his leisure hours, than he was faithful and assid- 
uous in performing his duty to his father during the hours of work. 
Faithful is the word. He could be trusted any where, and to do 
anything within the compass of his strength and years. It was 
hard, sometimes, to rouse him from his books ; but when he had 
been roused, and was entrusted with an errand or a piece of work, 
he would set about it vigorously and lose no time till it was done. 
" Come," his brother would say sometimes, when the father had 
set the boys a task and had gone from home ; " come. Hod, let's go 
fishing." "No," Horace would reply, in his whining voice, "let 
us do our stint first." " He was always in school though," says his 
brother, " and as we hoed down the rows, or chopped at the wood- 
pile, he was perpetually talking about his lessons, asking questions, 
and narrating what he had read." 

Fishing, it appears, was the only sport in which Horace took 
much pleasure, during the first ten years of his life. But his love 
of fishing did not originate in what the Germans call the "sport 
impulse." Other boys fished for sport; Horace fished for ^sA. He 
fished induslrioiisly^ keeping his eyes unceasingly on the float, and 
never distracting his own attention, or that of the fish, by convers- 
ing with his companions. The consequence was that he would 
often catch more than all the rest of the party put together. Shoot- 
ing was the favorite amusement of the boys of the neighborhood, 
but Horace could rarely be persuaded to take part in it. "When 
he did accompany a shooting-party, he would never carry or dis- 
charge a gun, and when tlie game was found he would lie down 
and stop his ears till the murder had betu done. 



CHAPTEE lY. 

HIS FATHER KUINED — REMOVAL TO VERMONT. 

New Hampshire before the era of manufactures— Causes of his father's failure— Rura 
in the olden time— An execution in the house— Flight of the father— Horace and 
the Rum Jug — Compromise with the creditors — Removal to another farm — Fi- 
nal ruin— Removal to Vermont— The winter journey— Poverty of the family- 
Scene at their new home— Cheerfulness in misfortune. 

But while thus Horace was growing up to meet his destiny, 
pressing forward on the rural road to learning, and secreting char- 
acter in that secluded home, a cloud, undiscerned by him, had come 
over his father's prospects. It began to gather when the boy was 
little more than six years old. In his seventh year it broke, and 
drove the family, for a time, from house and land. In his tenth, it 
had completed its work — his father was a ruined man, an exile, a 
fugitive from his native State. 

In those days, before the great manufacturing towns which now 
afford the farmer a market for his produce had sprung into exist- 
ence along the shores of the Merrimac, before a net-work of rail- 
roads regulated the price of grain in the barns of New Hampshire 
by the standard of Mark Lane, a farmer of New Hampshire was 
not, in his best estate, xcry far from ruin. Some articles which 
forty years ago, were quite destitute of pecuniary value, now afford 
an ample profit. Fire-wood, for example, when Horace Greeley 
was a boy, could seldom be sold at any price. It was usually 
burned up on the land on which it grew, as a worthless incumbrance. 
Fire-wood now, in the city of Manchester, sells for six dollars a 
cord, and at any point within ten miles of Manchester for four dol- 
lars. Forty years ago, farmers had little surplus produce, and that 
little had to be carried far, and it brought little money home. In 
short, before the manufacturing system was introduced into New 
Hampshire, affording employment to her daughters in the factory, 
to her sons on the laud, New Hampshire was a poverty-stricken 
State. 



CAUSES OF HIS FATHER'S FAILURE. 53 

It is one of the wonders of party infatuation, that the two States 
which if they have not gained most, have certainly most to gain 
from the " American system," should have always been, and should 
still he its most rooted opponents. But man the partisan, hke man 
the sectarian, is, al ways was, and will ever be, a poor creature. 

The way to thrive in New Hampshire was to work very hard, 
keep the store-bill small, stick to the farm, and be no man's security. 
Of these four things, Horace's father did only one — he worked hard. 
He was a good workman, methodical, skillful, and persevering. 
But he speculated in lumber, and lost money by it. He was ' bound,' 
as they say in the country, for another man, and had to pay the 
money which that other man failed to pay. He had a free and 
generous nature, lived well, treated the men whom he employed 
liberally, and in various ways swelled his account with the store- 
keeper. 

Those, too, were the jolly, bad days, when everybody drank 
strong drinks, and no one supposed that the affairs of life could pos- 
sibly be transacted without its agency, any more than a machine 
could go without the lubricating oil. A field could not be ' logged,' 
hay could not be got in, a harvest could not be gathered, unless the 
jug of liquor stood by the spring, and unless the spring was visited 
many times in the day by all hands. No visitor could be sent un- 
moistened away. No holiday could be celebrated without drinking- 
booths. At weddings, at christenings, at funerals, rum seemed to 
be the inducement that brought, and the tie that bound, the com- 
pany together. It was rum that cemented friendship, and rum that 
clinched bargains ; rum that kept out the cold of winter, and rum 
that moderated the summer's heat. Men drank it, women drank 
it, children drank it. There were families in which the first duty 
of every morning was to serve around to all its members, even to 
the youngest child, a certain portion of alcoholic liquor. Eum had 
to be bought with money, and money was hard to get in New 
Hampshire. Zaccheus Greeley was not the man to stint his work- 
men. At his house and on his farm the jug was never empty. In 
his cellar the cider never was dry. And so, by losses which he 
could not help, by practices which had not yet been discovered to 
be unnecessary, his affairs became disordered, and he began U-> 
descend the easy steep that leads to the abyss of bankruptcy. He 



54 1II3 FATHER RUINED. REMOVAL TO VERMONT. 

arrived — lingered a few years ou the edge — was pushed in — and 
scrambled out on the other side. 

It was on a Monday morning. There had been a long, fierce 
rain, and the clouds still hung heavy and dark over the hills. 
Horace, then only seven years old, on coming down stairs in the 
morning, saw several men about the house; neighbors, some of 
them; others were strangers; others he had seen in the village. 
He was too young to know the nature of an Execution^ and by what 
right the sheriff and a party of men laid hands upon his father's 
property. His father had walked quietly off into the woods ; for, 
at that period, a man's person was not exempt from seizure. Horace 
had a vague idea that the men had come to rob them of all they 
possessed ; and wild stories are afloat in the neighborhood, of the 
boy's conduct on the occasion. Some say, that he seized a hatchet, 
ran to the neighboring field, and began furiously to cut down a fa- 
vorite pear-tree, saying, " They shall not have tTiat^ anyhow." But 
his mother called him off, and the pear-tree still stands. Another 
story is, that he went to one of his mother's closets, and taking as 
many of her dresses as he could grasp in his arms, ran away with 
them into the woods, hid them behind a rock, and then came back 
to the house for more* Others assert, that the article carried off 
by the indignant boy was not dresses, but a gallon of rum. But 
whatever the boy did, or left undone, the reader may imagine that 
it was to all the family a day of confusion, anguish, and horror. 
Both of Horace's parents were persons of incorruptible honesty ; 
they had striven hard to place such a calamity as this far from their 
house ; they had never experienced themselves, nor witnessed at 
their earlier homes, a similar scene ; the blow was unexpected ; and 
mingled with their sense of shame at being publicly degraded, was 
a feeling of honest rage at the supposed injustice of so summary a 
proceeding. It was a dark day ; but it passed, as the darkest day 
will. 

An " arrangement" was made with the creditors. Mr. Greeley 
gave up his own farm, temporarily, and removed to another in the 
adjoining town of Bedford, which he cultivated on shares, and de- 
voted principally to the raising of hops. Misfortune still pursued 
him. His two years' experience of hop-growing was not satisfac- 
tory. The hop-market was depressed. His own farm in Amherst 



BEGINNING THE .WORLD ANEW. . OC 

was either ill managed or else the seasons were unfavorable. He 
gave up the hop-farm, poorer than ever. He removed back to hia 
old home in Amherst. A little legal manoeuvring or rascality on 
the part of a creditor, gave the finishing blow to his fortunes ; and, 
in the winter of 1821, he gave up the effort to recover himself, be- 
came a bankrupt, was sold out of house, land, and household goods 
by the sheriff, and fled from the State to avoid arrest, leaving his 
family behind. Horace was nearly ten years old. Some of the 
debts then left unpaid, he discharged in part thirty years after. 

Mr. Greeley had to begin the world anew, and the world was all 
before him, where to choose, excepting only that portion of it which 
is included within the boundaries of New Hampshire. He made his 
way, after some wandering, to the town of "Westhaven, in Rutland 
county, Vermont, about a hundred and twenty miles northwest of 
his former residence. There he found a large landed proprietor, 
who had made one fortune in Boston as a merchant, and married 
another in "Westhaven, the latter consisting of an extensive tract 
of land. He had now retired from business, had set up for a coun- 
try gentleman, was clearing his lands, and when they were cleared 
he rented them out in farms. This attempt to " found an estate," 
in the European style, signally failed. The " mansion house" has 
been disseminated over the neighborhood, one wing here, another 
wing there ; the " lawn" is untrimmed ; the attempt at a park-gate 
has lost enough of the paint that made it tawdry once, to look 
shabby now. But this gentleman was useful to Zaccheus Greeley 
in the day of his poverty. He gave him work, rented him a small 
house nearly opposite the park-gate just mentioned, and thus en- 
abled him in a few weeks to transport his family to a new home. 

It was in the depth of winter when they made the journey. The 
teamster that drove them still lives to tell how ' old Zac Greeley 
came to him, and wanted he should take his sleigh and horses and 
go over with him to New Hampshire State, and bring his family 
back ;' and how, when they had got a few miles on the way, he said 
to Zac, said he, that he (Zac) was a stranger to him, and he did n't 
feel like going so far without enough to secure him ; and so Zac 
gave him enough to secure him, and away they drove to New 
Hampshire State. One sleigh was suflScient to convey all the little 
property the law had left the family, and the load could not have 



56 HIS rATIIER llUINED.-;pREMOVAL TO VERMONT. 

been a heavy one, for the distance was accomplished in a little more 
than two days. The sleighing, however, was good, and the Con- 
necticut river was crossed on the ice. The teamster remembers 
well the intelligent white-headed boy who was so pressing with his 
questions, as they rode along over the snow, and who soon exhaust- 
ed the man's knowledge of the geography of the region in -which 
he had lived all his days. " He asked me," says he, "a great dea. 
about Lake Champlain, and how far it was from Plattsburgh to this, 
that, and t' other place ; but. Lord ! he told me a d — d sight more 
than I could tell 7im." The passengers in the sleigh were Horace, 
his parents, his brother, and two sisters, and all arrived safely at the 
little house in Westhaven,— safely, but very, very poor. They pos- 
sessed the clothes they wore on their journey, a bed or two, a few 
— very few— domestic utensils, an antique chest, and one or two 
other small relics of their former state ; and they possessed nothing 
more. 

A lady, who was then a little girl, and, as little girls in the coun- 
try will, used to run in and out of the neighbors' houses at all hours 
without ceremony, tells me that, many times, during that winter, 
she saw the newly-arrived family taking sustenance in the follow 
ing manner : — A five-quart milk-pan filled with bean porridge — an 
hereditary dish among the Scotch-Irish — was placed upon the floor, 
the children clustering around it. Each child was provided with a 
spoon, and dipped into the porridge, the spoon going directly from 
the common dish to the particular mouth, without an intermediate 
landing upon a plate, the meal consisting of porridge, and porridge 
only. The parents sat at a table, and enjoyed the dignity of a sep- 
arate dish. This was a homely way of dining ; but, adds my kind 
informant, "they seemed so happy over their meal, that many a 
time, as I looked upon the group, I wished our mother would let its 
eat in that way — it seemed so much better than sitting at a table 
and using knives, and forks, and plates." There was no repining in 
the family over their altered circumstances, nor any attempt to con- 
ceal the scantiness of their furniture. To what the world calls " ap- 
pearances" they seemed comtitutionally insensible. 



CHAPTER V. 

AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

Description of the country— Clearing up Land— All the family assist a la Swiss-Fam- 
ily-Robinson—Primitive costume of Horace— His early indifference to dress— Hia 
manner and attitude in school— A Peacemaker among the boys— Gets into a scrape, 
and out of it— Assists his school-fellows in their studies— An evening scene at 
home — Horace knows too much— Disconcerts his teachers by his questions— Leaves 
school— The pine knots still blaze on the hearth— Reads incessantly— Becomes a 
great draught player— Bee-hunting— Reads at the Mansion House— Taken for an 
Idiot— And for a possible President— Reads Mrs. Hemans with rapture— A Wolf 
Story— A Pedestrian Journey— Horace and the horseman— Yoking the Oxen- 
Scene with an old Soaker— Rum in Westhaven— Horace's First Pledge— Narrow 
escape from drowning— His religious doubts— Becomes a Universalist— Discovers 
the humbug of " Democracy "—Impatient to begin his apprenticeship. 

The family were gainers in some important particulars, by their 
change of residence. The land was better. The settlement was 
more recent. There was a better chance for a poor man to acquire 
property. And what is well worth mention for its effect upon the 
opening mind of Horace, the scenery was grander and more various. 
That part of Kutland county is in nature's large manner. Long 
ranges of hills, with bases not too steep for cultivation, but rising 
into loftj^, precipitous and fantastic summits, stretch away in every 
direction. The low-lands are level and fertile. Brooks and rivers 
come out from among the hills, where they have been officiating as 
water-power, and flow down through valleys that open and expand 
to receive them, fertilizing the soil. Roaming among these hills, 
the boy must have come frequently upon little lakes locked in on 
every side, without apparent outlet or inlet, as smooth as a mirror, 
as silent as the grave. Three miles from his father's house was the 
great Lake Champlain. He could not see it from his father's door, 
but he could see the blue mist that rose from its surface every 
morning and evening, Rad hung over it, a cloud veiling a Mystery. 
And he could see tliC long line of green knoll-like hills that 
formed its opposite shore. And he could go down on Sundays to 
the fthore itself, and stand in the immediate presence of the lake. 

8* 



58 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

Nor is it a slight thing for a boy to see a great natural object which 
he has been learning about in his school boolis ; nor is it an unin- 
fluential circumstance for him to live where he can see it frequent- 
ly. It was a superb country for a boy to grow up in, whether his 
tendencies were industrial, or sportive, or artistic, or poetical. 
There was rough work enough tq do on the land. Eish were 
abundant in the lakes and streams. Game abounded in the woods. 
"Wild grapes and wild honey were to be had for the search after 
them. Much of the surrounding scenery is sublime, and what is 
not sublime is beautiful. Moreover, Lake Champlain is a stage on 
the route of northern and southern travel, and living upon its shores 
brought the boy nearer to that world in which he was destined to 
move, and which he had to know before he could work in it to 
advantage. At Westhaven, Horace passed the next five years of 
his life. He was now rather tall for his age ; his mind was far in 
advance of it. Many of the opinions for which he has since done 
battle, were distinctly formed during that important period of his 
life to which the present chapter is devoted. 

At Westhaven, Mr. Greeley, as they say in the country, 
' took jobs ;' and the jobs which he took were of various kinds. 
He would contract to get in a harvest, to prepare the ground 
for a new one, to ' tend ' a saw-mill ; but his principal employ- 
ment was clearing up land ; that is, piling up and burning the trees 
after they had been felled. After a time he kept sheep and cat- 
tle. In most of his undertakings he prospered. By incessant labor 
and by reducing his expenditures to the lowest possible point, he 
saved money, slowly but continuously. 

In whatever he engaged, whether it was haying, harvesting, 
sawing, or land-clearing, he was assisted by all his family. There 
was little work to do at home, and after breakfast, the house was 
left to take care of itself, and away went the family, father, mother, 
boys, girls, and oxen, to work together. Clearing land offers an 
excellent field for family labor, as it affords work adapted to all de- 
grees of strength. The father chopped the larger logs, and direct- 
ed the labor of all the company. Horace drove the oxen, and 
drove them none too well, say the neighbors, and was gradually 
supplanted in the office of driver by his younger brother. Both 
the boys could chop the smaller trce^. Their mother and sisters 



PRIMITIVE COSTUMzV. OF HORACE. 59 

gathered together the light wood into heaps. And when the 
great logs had to be rolled upon one another, there was scope for 
the combined skill and strength of the whole party. Many happy 
and merry days the family spent together in this employment. 
The mother's spirit never flagged. Her voice rose in song and 
laughter from the tangled brush-wood in which she was often bur- 
ied; and no word, discordant or unkind, was ever known to 
break the perfect harmony, to interrupt the perfect good humor 
that prevailed in the family. At night, they went home to the 
most primitive of suppers, and partook of it in the picturesque and 
labor-saving style in which the dinner before alluded to was con- 
sumed. Tlie neighbors still point out a tract of fifty acres which 
was cleared in this sportive and Swiss-Family-Kobinson-like man- 
ner. They shpw the spring on the side of the road where the fam- 
ily used to stop and drink on their way ; and they show a hem- 
lock-tree, growing from the rocks above the spring, which used 
to furnish the brooms, nightly renewed, which swept the little 
house in which the little family lived. To complete the picture, 
imagine them all clad in the same material, the coarsest kind of 
linen or linsey-woolsey, home-spun, dyed with butternut bark, 
and the different garments made in the roughest and simplest man- 
ner by the mother. 

More than three garments at the same time, Horace seldom wore in 
the summer, and these were — a straw hat, generally in a state of 
dilapidation, a tow-shirt, never buttoned, a pair of trousers made of 
the family material, and having the peculiarity of being very short 
in both legs, but shorter in one than the other. In the winter he 
added a pair of shoes and a jacket. During the five years of his 
life at Westhaven, probably Ms clothes did not cost three dollars a 
year ; and, I believe, that during the whole period of his childhood, 
up to the time when he came ot aeje, not fifty dollars in all were 
expended upon his dress. He never manifested, on any occasion, in 
any company, nor at any part of his early life, the slightest interest 
in his attire, nor the least care for its effect upon others. That 
amiable trait in human nature which inclines us to decoration, 
which make us desirous to present an agreeable figure to others, 
and to abhor peculiarity in our appearance, is a trait which Horace 
never gave the smallest evidence of possessing. 



GO AT AVESTilAVEK, VERMONT. 

He went to school three winters in Westhaven, but not to any 
great advantage. He had ah-eady gone the round of district schooi 
studies, and did little more after his tenth year than walk over the 
course, keeping lengths ahead of all competitors, with little effort. 
"He was always," says one of his Westhaven schoolmates, "at 
the top of the school. He seldom had a teacher that could teach 
him anything. Once, and once only, he missed a word. His fair 
face was crimsoned in an instant. He was terrihly cut about it, and 
I fancied he was not himself for a week after. I see him now, as 
he sat in class, with his slender body, his large head, his open, 
ample forehead, his pleasant smile, and his coarse, clean, homespun 
clothes. His attitude was always the same. He sat with his arms 
loosely folded, his head bent forward, his legs crossed, and one foot 
swinging. He did not seem to pay attention, but nothing escaped 
him. He appeared to attend more from curiosity to hear what sort of 
work we made of the lesson than from any interest he took in the 
subject for his own sake. Once, I parsed a word egregiously wrong, 
an^ Horace was so taken aback by the mistake that he was startled 
from his propriety, and exclaimed, loud enough for the class to hear 
him, ' What a fool !' The manner of it was so ludicrous that I, and 
all the class, burst into laughter." 

Another schoolmate remembers him chiefly for his gentle manner 
and obliging disposition. " I never," she says, "knew him to fight, 
or to be angry, or to have an enemy. He was a peacemaker among 
us. He played with the boys sometimes, and I think was fonder 
of snowballing than any other game. For girls, as girls, he never 
manifested any preference. On one occasion he got into a scrape. 
He had broken some petty rule of the school, and was required, as 
a punishment, to inflict a certain number of blows upon another 
boy, who had, I think, been a participator in the offence. The in- 
strument of flagellation was placed in Horace's hand, and he drew 
off, as though he was going to deal a terrific blow, but it came 
down so gently on the boy's jacket that every one saw that Horace 
was shamming. The teacher interfered, and told him to strike 
harder ; and a little harder he did strike, but a more harmless flog- 
ging was never administered. He seemed not to have the power, 
any more than the will, to inflict pain." 

If Horace got little good himself from his last winters at school 



DISCONCERTS HIS TEACHERS. 61 

he was of great assistance to bis schoolfellows in explaining to them 
the difficulties of their lessons. Few evenings passed in which 
some strapping fellow did not come to the house with his grammar 
or his slate, and sit demurely by the side of Horace, while the dis- 
tracting sum was explained, or the dark place in the parsing les- 
^ son illuminated. The boy delighted to render such assistance. 
However deeply he might be absorbed in his own studies, as soon 
as he saw a puzzled countenance peering in at the door, he knew 
his man, knew what was wanted ; and wonld jump up from his 
recumbent posture in the chimney-corner, and proceed, with a 
patience that is stiU gratefully remembered, with a perspicuity that 
is still mentioned with admiration, to impart the information re- 
quired of him. Fancy it. It is a pretty picture. The ' little white- 
headed fellow ' generally so abstracted, now all intelligence and ani- 
mation, by the side of a great hulk of a young man, twice his age 
and three times his weight, with a countenance expressing perplex- 
ity and despair. An apt question, a reminding word, a few figures 
hastily scratched on the slate, and light flushes on the puzzled mind. 
He wonders he had not thought of that : he wishes Heaven had 
given Mm such a ' head-piece.' 

To some of his teachers at Westhaven, Horace was a cause of 
great annoyance. He knew too much. He asked awkward ques- 
tions. He was not to be put off with common-place solutions of 
serious difficulties. He wanted things to hang together, and liked 
to know how, if this was true, that could be true also. At length, 
one of his teachers, when Horace was thirteen years old, had the 
honesty and good sense to go to his father, and say to him, point 
blank, that Horace knew more than he did, and it was of no use for 
him to go to school any more. So Horace remained at home, read 
hard all that winter in a little room by himself, and taught his 
youngest sister beside. He had attended district school, altogether, 
about forty -five months. 

At Westhaven, the pine-knots blazed on the hearth as brightly 
and as continuously as they had done at the old home in Amherst. 
There was a new reason wliy they should ; for a candle was a lux- 
ury now, too expensive to be indulged in. Horace's home was a 
favorite evening resort for the children of the neighborhood — a fact 
T^Mli(;h says much for the kindly spirit of its inmates. They oame 



O'-i AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

to hear bis mother's songs and stories, to play Tvith his brother and 
sisters, to get assistance from himself ; and they liked to be there, 
where there was no stiffness, nor ceremony, nor discord. Horace 
cared nothing for their noise and romping, but he could never be 
induced to join in an active game. "When he was not assisting 
some bewildered arithmetician, he lay in the old position, on his 
back in the fireplace, reading, always reading. The boys would 
hide his book, but he would get another. They would pull him out 
of his fiery den by the leg ; and he would crawl back, without the 
least show of anger, but without the slightest inclination to yield 
the point. 

There was a game, however, which could sometimes tempt him 
from his book, and of which he gradually became excessively fond. 
It was draughts, or ' checkers.' In that game he acquired extraor- 
dinary skill, beating everybody in the neighborhood ; and before he 
had reached maturity, there were few draught-players in the coun- 
try — if any — who could win two games in three of Horace Greeley. 
His cronies at "Westhaven seem to have been those who were fond 
of draughts. In his passion for books, he was alone among his 
companions, who attributed his continual reading more to indolence 
than to his acknowledged superiority of intelligence. It was often 
predicted that, whoever else might prosper, Horace never would. 

And yet, he gave proof, in very early life, that the Yankee ele- 
ment was strong Avithin him. In the first place, he was always do- 
ing something ; and, in the second, he always had something to sell. 
He saved nuts, and exchanged them at the store for the articles he 
wished to purchase. He would hack away, hours at a time, at a 
pitch-pine stump, the roots of which are as inflammable as pitch 
itself, and, tying up the roots in little bundles, and the little bundles 
into one large one, he would " back" the load to the store, and sell 
it for kindling wood. His favorite out-door sport, too, at West- 
haven, was bee-hunting, which is not only an agreeable and excit- 
ing pastime, but occasionally rewards the hunter with a prodigioua 
mess of honey — as much as a hundred and fifty pounds having been 
frequently obtained from a single tree. This was profitable sport, 
and Horace liked it amazingly. His share of the honey generally 
found its way to the store. By these and other expedients, the boy 
managed always to have a httle money, and when a pedler came 



TAKEN FOR AN IDIOT. 63 

along with books in his wagon, Horace was pretty sure to be his 
customer. Yet he was only half a Yankee. He could earn money, 
but the bargaining faculty he had not. 

What did he read ? Whatever he could get. But his preference 
was for history, poetry, and — newspapers. He had read, as I have 
before mentioned, the whole Bible before he was six years old. He 
read the Arabian Nights with intense pleasure in his eighth year ; 
Kobinson Crusoe in his ninth ; Shakspeare in his eleventh ; in his 
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth years, he read a good many of 
the common, superficial histories- — Eobertson's, Goldsmith's, and 
others— and as many tales and romances as he could borrow. At 
"Westhaven, as at Amherst, he roamed far and wide in search of 
books. He was fortunate, too, in living near the ' mansion-house' 
before mentioned, the proprietor of which, it appears, took some in- 
terest in Horace, and, though he would not lend him books, allow- 
ed him to come to the house and read there as often and as long as 
he chose. 

A story is told by one who lived at the ' mansion-house' when 
Horace used to read there. Horace entered the library one day, 
when the master of the house happened to be present, in conversa- 
tion with a stranger. The stranger, struck with the awkwardness 
and singular appearance of the boy, took him for little better than 
an idiot, and was inclined to laugh at the idea of lending books to 
* such a fellow as that.'' The owner of the mansion defended his 
conduct by extolling the intelligence of his protege, and wound up 
with the usual climax, that he should " not be surprised, sir, if» that 
boy should come to be President of the United States." People in 
those days had a high respect for the presidential ofiice, and really 
believed — many of them did — that to get the highest place it was 
only necessary to be the greatest man. Hence it was a very com- 
mon mode of praising a boy, to make the safe assertion that he 
mighty one day, if he persevered in well-doing, be the President of 
the United States. That was before the era of wire-pulling and 
rotation in ofiice. He must be either a very young or a very old 
man who can now mention tha presidential oflace in connection 
with the future of any boy not extraordinarily vicious. Wire-pull- 
ing, happily, has robbed the schoolmasters of one of their bad argu- 
ments for a virtuous life. But we are wandering from the library. 



64 AT V.'ESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

The end of the story is, that the stracger looked as if he thought 
Horace's defender half mad himself; and, "to tell the truth," said 

the lady who told me the story, "we all thought Mr. had made 

a crazy speech." Hotace does not appear to have made a favorable 
impression at the ' mansion-house.' 

But he read the books in it, for all that. Perhaps it was there, 
that he fell in with a copy of Mrs. Hemans' poems, which, where- 
ever he found them, were the first poems that awakened his enthu- 
siasm, the first writings that made him aware of the better impulses 
of his nature. "I remember," he wrote in the Eose of Sharon for 
1841, "as of yesterday, the gradual unfolding^ of the exceeding 
truthfulness and beauty, the profound heart-knowledge (to coin a 
Germanism) which characterizes Mrs. Hemans' poems, upon my 
own immature, unfolding mind. — ' Cassabianca,' 'Things that 
change,' ' The Yoice of Spring,' ' The Traveller at the Source of 
the N^ile,' ' The Wreck,' and many other poems of kindred nature 
are enshrined in countless hearts — especially of those whose intel- 
lectual existence dates its commencement between 1820 and 1830 — 
as gems of priceless value ; as spirit-wands, by whose electric touch 
they were first made conscious of the diviner aspirations, the loft- 
ier, holier energies within them." 

Such a testimony as this may teach the reader, if he needs the 
lesson, not to undervalue the authors whom his fastidious taste 
may place among the Lesser Lights of Literature. To you, fastid- 
ious reader, those authors may have little to impart. But among 
the hills in the country, where the feelings are fresher, and minds 
are unsated by literary sweets, there may be many a thoughtful boy 
and earnest man, to whom your Lesser Lights are Suns that warm, 
illumine, and quicken ! 

The incidents in Horace's life at Westhaven were few, and of the 
few that did occur, several have doubtless been forgotten. The 
people there remember him vividly enough, and are profuse in im- 
parting their general impressions of his character; but the facts 
which gave rise to those impressions have mostly escaped their 
memories. They speak of him as an dbsor'bed boy, who rarely 
saluted or saw a passer-by — who would walk miles at the road-side, 
following the zig-zag of the fences, without once looking up — whc 
was often taken by strangers for a natural fool, but was known by 



A WOLF STORY. (>"> 

his intimates to be, in the language of one of tliem — " a darned 
smart fellow, in spite of his looks " — who was utterly blameless in 
all his ways, and works, and words — who had not, and could not 
have had, an enemy, because nature, by leaving out of his compo- 
sition the diabolic element, had made it impossible for him to le 
one. The few occurrences of the boy's life, which, in addition to 
these general reminiscences of his character, have chanced to escape 
oblivion, may as well be narrated here. 

As an instance of his nervous timidity, a lady mentions, that 
when he was about eleven years old, he came to her house one even- 
ing on some errand, and staid till after dark. He started for home, 
at length, but had not been gone many minutes before he burst into 
the house again, in great agitation, saying he had seen a wolf by 
the side of the road. There had been rumors of wolves in the 
neighborhood. Horace declared he had seen the eyes of one glar- 
ing upon him as he passed, and he was so overcome with terror, 
that two of the elder girls of the family accompanied him home. 
They saw no wolf, nor were there any wolves about at the time ; 
the mistake probably arose from some phosphorescent wood, or 
some other bright object. A Vermont boy of that period, as a gen- 
eral thing, cared little more for a wolf than a New York boy does 
for a cat, and could have faced a pack of wolves with far less dread 
than a company of strangers. Horace was never abashed by an 
audience; but two glaring eye-balls among the brush-wood sent 
him flying with t#ror. 

Ill nothing are mortals more wise than in their fears. That which 
we stigmatize as cowardice — what is it but nature's kindly warning 
to her children, not to confront what they cannot master, and not 
to undertake what their strength is unequal to ? Horace was a 
match for a rustic auditory, and he feared it not. He was not a 
match for a wild beast ; so he ran away. Considerate nature ! 

Horace, all through his boyhood, kept his object of becoming a 
printer, steadily in view ; and soon after coming to Vermont, about 
his eleventh year, he began to think it time for him to take a step 
towards the fulfilment of his intention. He talked to his father on 
the subject, but received no encouragement from him. His father 
said, and. very truly, that no one would take an apprentice so young. 
But the boy was not satisfied ; and, one morning, he trudged off to 



G^ AT WESTHAVEN, VERMOxVT. 

WJiitehall, a town about nine miles distant, where a newspaper was 
published, to make inquiries. He went to the printing office, saw 
the printer, and learned that his father was right. He icas too 
young, the printer said ; and so the boy trudged home again. 

A few months after, he went on another and much longer pedes- 
trian expedition. He started, with seventy-five cents in his pocket 
and a small bundle of provisions on a stick over his shoulder, to 
walk to Londonderry, a hundred and twenty miles distant, to see 
his old friends and relatives. He performed the journey, stayed sev- 
ral weeks, and came back with a shilling or two more money than 
he took with him — owing, we may infer, to the amiable way aunts 
and uncles have of bestowing small coins upon nephews who visit 
them. His re-appearance in New Hampshire excited unbounded 
astonishment, his age and dimensions seeming ludicrously out of 
proportion to the length and manner of his solitary journey. He 
was made much of during his stay, and his journey is still spoken 
of there as a wonderful performance, only exceeded, in fact, by 
Horace's second return to Londonderry a year or two after, when 
he drove over the same ground, his aunt and her four children, in 
a ' one-horse wagon,' and drove back again, without the slightest 
accident. 

As a set-off to these marvels, it must be recorded, that on two 
other occasions he was taken for an idiot — once, when he entered 
a store, in one of the brownest of his brown studies, and a stranger 
inquired, "What darn fool is that?" — and a second time, in the 
manner following. He was accustomed to call his father " /^i>," 
both in speaking to, and speaking of him. One day, while Horace 
was chopping wood by the side of the road, a man came up on 
horse-back and inquired the way to a distant town. Horace could 
not tell him, and, without looking np, said, " ask /S^r," meaning, ask 
father. The stranger, puzzled at this reply, repeated his question, 
and Horace again said, "ask Sir.'''' "I am asking," shouted the 
man. " "Well, ask /S/r," said Horace, once more. " Aint I asking, 
you — fool," screamed the man. " But I want you to ask Sii\^'' said 
Horace. It was of no avail, the man rode away in disgust, and 
inquifed at the next tavern "who that tow-headed fool was down ^ 
the road." 

In a similar absent fit it must have been, that the boy once at- 



YOKING THE OXEN. 67 

tempted, in vain, to yoke the oxen that he had yoked a hundred 
times before without diflSculty. To see a small boy yoking a pair 
of oxen is, O City Reader, to behold an amazing exhibition of the 
power of Mind over Matter. The huge beasts need not come under 
the yoke — twenty men could not compel them — but they do come 
under it, at the beck of a boy that can just stagger under the yoke 
himself, and whom one of the oxen, with one horn and a shake of 
the head, could toss over a hay-stack. The boy, with the yoke on 
his shoulders, and one of the ' bows ' in his hand, marches up to 
the ' off ' ox, puts the bow round his neck, thrusts the ends of the 
bow through the holes of the yoke, fastens them there— and one 
OS is his. But the other ! The boy then removes the other bow, 
holds up the end of the yoke, and commands the *near' ox to 
approach, and 'come under here sir.' "Wonderful to relate! the 
near ox obeys ! He walks slowly up, and takes his place by the 
side of his brother, as though it were a pleasant thing to pant all 
day before the plough, and he was only too happy to leave the dull 
pasture. But the ox is a creature of habit. If you catch the near 
ox first, and then try to get the off ox to come under the near side 
of the yoke, you will discover that the off ox has an opinion of his 
own. He won't come. This was the mistake which Horace, one 
morning in an absent fit, committed, and the off ox could not be 
brought to deviate from established usage. After much coaxing, 
and, possibly, some vituperation, Horace was about to give it up, 
when his brother chanced to come to the field, who saVf at a glance 
what was the matter, and rectified the mistake. "Ah !" his father 
used to say, after Horace had made a display of this kind, " that 
boy will never get along in this world. He '11 never know more 
than enough to come in when it rains." 

Another little story is told of the brothers. The younger waa 
throwing stones at a pig that preferred to go in a direction exactly 
contrary to that in which the boys wished to drive him — a com- 
mon case with pigs, et ceteri. Horace, who never threw stones at 
pigs, was overheard to say, " IlTow, you ought n't to throw stones 
at that hog ; he don't hnow anything." 

The person who heard these words uttered by the boy, is one of 
those libulant individuals who, in the rural districts, are called ' old 
Boakers,' and his face, tobacco-stained, and rubicund with the 



68 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

drinks of forty years, gleamed "ndth the light of other days, as he 
hiccoughed out the little tale. It may serve to show how the boy 
is remembered in "Westhaven, if I add a word or two respecting my 
interview with this man. I met him on an unfrequented road ; his 
hair was gray, his step was tottering ; and thinking it probable he 
might be able to add to my stock of reminiscences, I asked him 
whether he remembered Horace Greeley. He mumbled a few 
words in reply ; " but I perceived that he was far gone towards in- 
toxication, and soon drove on. A moment after, I heard a voice call- 
ing behind me. I looked round, and discovered that the voice was 
that of the soaker, who was shouting for me to stop. I alighted 
and went back to him. And now that the idea of my previous 
questions had had time to imprint itself upon his half-torpid brain, 
his tongue was loosened, and he entered into the subject with an 
enthusiasm that seemed for a time to burn up the fumes that had 
stupefied him. He was full of his theme ; and, besides confirming 
much that I had already heard, added the story related above, from 
his own recollection. As the tribute of a sot to the champion of 
the Maine-Law, the old man's harangue was highly interesting. 

That part of the town of Westhaven was, thirty years ago, a 
desperate place for drinking. The hamlet in which the family 
lived longer than anywhere else in the neighborhood, has ceased to 
exist, and it decayed principally through the intemperance of its 
inhabitants. Much of the land about it has not been improved in 
the least decree, from what it was when Horace Greeley helped to 
clear it ; and drink has absorbed the means and the energy which 
should have been devoted to its improvement. A boy growing up 
in such a place would be likely to become either a drunkard or a 
tee-totaller, according to his organization ; and Horace became the 
latter. It is rather a singular fact, that, though both his parents 
and all their ancestors were accustomed to the habitual and liberal 
use of intoxicating liquors and tobacco, neither Horace nor his 
brother could ever be induced to partake of either. They had a 
constitutional aversion to the taste of both, long before they uniler- 
stood the nature of the human system well enough to know that 
stimulants of all kinds are necessarily pernicious. Horace was 
therefore a tee-totaller before tee-totalism came up, and he took a 
sort of pledge before the pledge was inverted. It happened ojn^ 



NARROW ESCAPE FROM DROWNING. 69 

day that a neighbor stopped to take dinner with the family, and, 
as a matter of course, the bottle of rum was brought out for hig 
entertainment. Horace, it appears, either tasted a little, or else 
took a disgust at the smell of the stuff, or perhaps was offended at 
the effects which he saw it produce. An idea struck him. He 
said, " Father, what will you give me if I do not drink a drop of 
liquor till I am twenty-one ?" His father, who took the question aa 
a joke, answered, "I'll give you a dollar." "It's a bargain," said 
Horace. And it teas a bargain, at least on the side of Horace, who 
kept his pledge inviolate, though I have no reason to believe he 
ever received his dollar. Many were the attempts made by his 
friends, then and afterwards, to induce him to break his resolution, 
and on one occasion they tried to force some liquor into his mouth. 
But from the day on which the conversation given above occurred, 
to this day, he has not knowingly taken into his system any alco- 
holic liquid. 

At "Westhaven, Horace incurred the second peril of his life. He 
was nearly strangled in coming into the world ; and, in his thirteenth 
year, he was nearly strangled out of it. The family were then 
living on the banks of the Hubbarton river, a small stream which 
supplied power to the old ' Tryon Sawmill,' which the father, as- 
sisted by his boys, conducted for a year or two. Across the river, 
where it was widened by the dam, there was no bridge, and people 
were accustomed to get over on a floating saw-log, pushing along 
the log by means of a pole. The boys were floating about in the 
river one day, when the log on which the younger brother was 
standing, rolled over, and in went the boy, over head and ears, 
into water deep enough to drown a giraffe. He rose to the surface 
and clung to the bark of the log, but was unable to get upon it 
from the same cause as that which had prevented his standing upon 
it — it would roll. Horace hastened to his assistance. He got upon 
the log to which his brother was clinging, lay down upon it, and 
put down a hand for his brother to grasp. His brother did grasp 
it, and pulled with so much vigor, that the log made another rev- 
olution, and in went Horace. Neither of the boys could swim. 
They clung to the log and screamed for assistance ; but no one hap- 
pened to be near enough to hear them. At length, the younger of 
the drowning pair managed, by climbing over Horace, and sousing 



70 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

him completely under the log, to get out. Horace emerged, half- 
drowned, and again hung for life at the rough bark. Bat the future 
hero of ten thousand paragraphs was not to be CTowned in a mill- 
pond ; so the log floated into shallower water, when, by making a 
last, spasmodic effort, he succeeded in springing up high enough to 
get safely upon its broad back. It was a narrow escape for both ; 
but Horace, with all his reams of articles forming in his head, came 
as near taking a summary departure to that bourn where no 
Teibijne could have been set up, as a boy could, and yet not go. 
He went dripping home, and recovered from the effects of his ad- 
'^enture in due time. 

This was Horace Greeley's first experience of ' log-rolling.' It 
was not calculated to make him like it. 

One of the first subjects which the boy seriously considered, and 
perhaps the first upon which he arrived at a decided opinion, was 
Eeligion. And this was the more remarkable from the fact, that 
his education at home was not of a nature to direct his attention 
strongly to the subject. Both of his parents assented to the Ortho- 
dox creed of New England ; his father inherited a preference for 
the Baptist denomination ; his mother a leaning to the Presbyter- 
ian. But neither were members of a church, and neither were par- 
ticularly devout. The father, however, wa«i somewhat strict in 
certain observances. He would not allow novels and plays to be 
read in the house on Sundays, nor an heretical book at any time. 
The family, when they lived near a church, attended it with con- 
siderable regularity — Horace among the rest. Sometimes the father 
would require the children to read a certain number of chapters in 
the Bible on Sunday. And if the mother — as mothers are apt to 
be — was a little less scrupulous upon such points, and occasionally 
winked at Sunday novel-reading, it certainly did not arise from any 
set disapproval of her husband's strictness. It was merely that she 
was the mother, he the father, of the family. The religious educa- 
tion of Horace was, in short, of a nature to leave his mind, not un- 
biased in favor of orthodoxy — that had been almost impossible in 
isTew England thirty years ago — but as nearly in equilibrium on the 
subject, in a state as favorable to original inquiry, as the place and 
circumstances of his early life rendered possible. 

There was not in "Westha^en one Individual whc wai' knowc to 



THE STORY OF DEMETRIUS. 71 

be a dissenter from the established faith ; nor was there any dis- 
senting sect or society in the vicinity ; nor was any periodical of a 
heterodox character taken in the neighborhood; nor did any heret- 
ical works fall in the boy's way till years after his religions opinions 
were settled. Yet, from the age of twelve he began to doubt; 
and at fourteen — to use the pathetic language of one who knew 
him then — " he was little better than a Universalist." 

Tlie theology of the seminary and the theology of the farm-house 
are two different things. They are as unlike as the discussion of the 
capital punishment question in a debating society is to the dis- 
cussion of the same question among a company of criminals ac- 
cused of murder. The unsophisticated, rural mind meddles not 
with the metaphysics of divinity; it takes little interest in the 
Foreknowledge and Free-will difficulty, in the Election and Respon- 
sibility problem, and the manifold subtleties connected therewith . 
It grapples with a simpler question : — ' Am I in danger of being 
damned f ' Is it likely that I shall go to hell, and be tormented with 
burning sulphur, and the proximity of a serpent, forever, and ever, 
and ever?' To minds of an ampler and more generous nature, the 
same question presents itself, but in another form : — Is it a fact that 
nearly every individual of the human family will forever fail of at- 
taining the WELFARE of which he was created capable, and be ' lost^^ 
beyond the hope, beyond the possibility of recovery?' Upon the 
latter form of the inquiry, Horace meditated much, and talked 
often during his thirteenth and fourteenth years. "When his com- 
panions urged the orthodox side, he would rather object, but mildly, 
and say with a puzzled look, " It don't seem consistent." 

While he was in the habit of revolving such thoughts in his mind, 
a circumstance occurred which accelerated his progress- towards a 
rejection of the damnation dogma. It was nothing more than his 
chance reading in a school-book of t]\e history of Demetrius Polior- 
cetes. The part of the story which bore upon the subject of his 
thoughts may be out-lined thus : — 

Demetrius, (B. 0. 301,) surnamed Poliorc^tes, lesieger of cities^ 
was the son of AntigOFus, one of those generals whom the death 
of Alexander the Great left masters of the world. Demetrius was 
one of the 'fast' princes of antiquity, a handsome, brave, ingen- 



72 AT WEftTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

nous man, but vain, rash and dissolute. He and his father ruled 
over Asia Minor and Syria. Greece was under the sway of Cassander 
and Ptolemy, who had re-established in Athens aristocratic institu- 
tions, and held the Athenians in servitude. Demetrius, who aspired 
to the glory of succoring the distressed, and was not averse to re- 
ducing the power of his enemies, Cassander and Ptolemy, sailed 
to Athens with a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, expelled the 
garrison and obtained possession of the city. Antigorus had been 
advised to retain possession of Athens, the key of Greece ; but he 
rephed : — " The best and securest of all keys is the friendship of 
the people, and Athens was the watch-tower of the world, from 
whence the torch of his glory would blaze over the earth." Ani- 
mated by such sentiments, his son, Demetrius, on reaching the city, 
had proclaimed that "his father, in a happy hour, he hoped, for 
Athens, had sent him to re-instate them in their liberties, and to re- 
store their laws and ancient form of government." The Athen- 
ians received him with acclamations. He performed all that he 
promised, and more. He gave the people a hundred and fifty 
thousand measures of meal, and timber enough to build a hundred 
galleys. The gratitude of the Athenians was boundless. They be- 
' stowed upon Demetrius the title of king and god-protector. They 
erected an altar upon the spot where he had first alighted from his 
chariot. They created a priest in his honor, and decreed that he 
should be received in all his future visits as a god. They changed 
the name of the month MunycMon to Demetrion^ called the last 
day of every month Demetrius^ and the feasts of Bacchus Demetria. 
" The gods," says the good Plutarch, " soon showed how much of- 
fended they were at these things." Demetrius enjoyed these ex- 
travagant honors for a time, added an Athenian wife to the number 
he already possessed, and sailed away to prosecute the war. A sec- 
ond time the Athenians were threatened with the yoke of Cassander ; 
again Demetrius, with a fleet of three hundred and thirty ships, 
came to their deliverance, and again the citizens taxed their ingenu- 
ity to the utmost in devising for their deliverer new honors and more 
piquant pleasures. At length Demetrius, after a career of victory^ 
fell into misfortune. His domains were invaded, his father was 
slain, the kingdom was dismembered, and Demetrius, with a rem- 
nant of his army, was obliged to fly. Reaching Ephesus in want of 



THE STORY OF DEMETRIUS. 73 

money, he spared the temple filled with treasure ; and fearing his 
soldiers would plunder it, left the place and embarked for Greece. 
His dependence was iipon the Athenians^ with whom he had left his 
wife, his ships, and his money. Confidently relying upon their af- 
fection and gratitude, he pursued his voyage with all possible ex- 
pedition as to a secure asylum. But theJicMe Athenians failed him 
ill his day of need I At the Cyclades, Athenian ambassadors met 
him, and mocked him with the entreaty that he would by no means 
go to Athens, as the people had declared by an edict, that they 
would receive no king into the city ; and as for his wife, he could 
find her at Megare, whither she had been conducted with the re- 
spect due to her rank. Demetrius, who up to that moment had 
borne his reverses with calmness, was cut to the heart, and over- 
come by mingled disgust and rage. He was not in a condition to 
avenge the wrong. He expostulated with the Athenians in mod- 
erate terms, and waited only to be joined by his galleys, and turned 
his back upon the ungrateful country. Time passed. Demetrius 
again became powerful. Athens was rent by factions. Availing 
himself of the occasion, the injured king sailed with a consider- 
able fleet to Attica, landed his forces and invested the city, which 
was soon reduced to such extremity of famine that a father and 
son, it is related, fought for the possession of a dead mouse that 
happened to fall from the ceiling of the room in which they were 
sitting. The Athenians were compelled, at length, to open their 
gates to Demetrius, who marched in with his troops. He com- 
manded all the citizens to assemble in the theatre. They obeyed. 
Utterly at his mercy ^ they expected no mercy ^ felt that they deserved 
no mercy. The theatre was surrounded with armed men, and on 
each side of the stage was stationed a body of the king's own 
guards. Demetrius entered by the tragedian's passage, advanced 
across the stage, and confronted the assembled citizens, who await- 
ed in terror to hear the signal for their slaughter. But no such 
agnal was heard. He addressed them in a soft and persuasive 
A)ne, complained of their conduct in gentle terms, forgave their in- 
gratitude, took them again into favor, gave the city a hundred thou- 
sand measures of wheat, and promised the re-establishment of their 
ancient institutions. The people, relieved from their terror, aston- 
ished at their good fortune, and filled with enthusiasm at such 

4 



74 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

generons forbearance, OTenvlielmed Demetrius with acclama* 
tions. 

Horace was fascinated by the stoiy. He thought the conduct of 
Demetrius not only magnanimous and humane, but just and politic. 
Sparing the people, misguided by their leaders, seemed to him the 
best "way to make them ashamed of their ingratitude, and the best 
way of preventing its recurrence. And he argued, if mercy is best 
and wisest on a small scale, can it be less so on a large ? If a man 
is capable of such lofty magnanimity, may not God be who made 
man capable of it. If, in a human being, revenge and jealousy are 
despicable, petty and vulgar, what impiety is it to attribute such 
feelings to the beneficent Father of the Universe ? The sin of the 
Athenians against Demetrius had every element of enormity. 
Twice he had snatched them from the jaws of ruin. Twice he 
had supplied their dire necessity. Twice he had refused all reward 
except the empty honors they paid to his name and person. He 
had condescended to become one of them by taking a daughter of 
Athens as his wife. He had entrusted his wife, his ships and his 
treasure to their care. Yet in the day of his calamity, when for 
the first time it was in their i^owev to render him a service, when 
he was coming to them with the remnant of his fortune, without a 
doubt of their fidelity, with every reason to suppose that his mis- 
fortunes would render him dearer to them than ever ; fhen it was 
that they determined to refuse him even an admittance within their 
gates, and sent an embassy to meet him with mockery and sub- 
terfuge. 

Of the offences committed by man against man, there is one 
which man can seldom lift his soul up to the height of forgiving. 
It is to be slighted in the day of his humiliation by those who 
showed him honor in the time of his prosperity. Yet man can 
forgive even this. Demetrius forgave it; and the nobler and 
greater a man is, the less keen is his sense of personal wrong, the 
less diflScult it is for him to forgive. The poodle must show his 
teeth at every passing dog ; the mastiff walks majestic and serene 
through a pack of snarling curs. 

Amid such thoughts as these, the orthodox theory of damnation 
had little chance ; the mind of the boy revolted against it more and 



BECOMES A UNIVERSALIS!. 75 

more; and the result was, that he became as our pious friend 
lamented, "little better than a TJniversahst" — in fact no better. 
From the age of fourteen he was known wherever he lived as a 
champion of Universalism, though he never entered a Universalist 
church till he was twenty years old. By what means he managed 
to 'reconcile' his new belief with the explicit and unmistakable 
declarations of what he continued to regard as Holy Writ, or how 
anybody has ever done it, I do not know. The boy appears to have 
shed his orthodoxy easily. His was not a nature to travail with a 
new idea for months and years, and arrive at certainty only after a 
struggle that rends the soul, and leaves it sore and sick for life. He 
was young ; the iron of our theological system had not entered into 
his soul ; he took the matter somewhat lightly ; and, having arrived 
at a theory of the Divine government, which accorded with his own 
gentle and forgiving nature, he let the rest of the theological science 
alone, and went on his way rejoicing. 

Yet it was no shght thing that had happened to him. A man's 
Faith is the man. Not to have a Faith is not to be a man. Beyond 
all comparison, the most important fact of a man's life is the forma- 
tion of the Faith which he adheres to and lives by. And though 
^Horace Greeley has occupied himself little with things spiritual, 
confining himself, by a necessity of his nature, chiefly to the pro- 
motion of material interests, yet I doubt not that this early change 
in his religious belief was the event which gave to all his subse- 
quent life its direction and character. Whether that change was a 
desirable one, or an undesirable, is a question upon which the reader 
of course has a decided opinion. The following, perhaps, may be 
taken as the leading consequences of a deliberate and intelhgent ex- 
change of a severe creed in which a person has been educated, for 
a less severe one to which he attains by the operations of his own 
mind : 

It quickens his understanding, and multiplies his ideas to an extent 
which, it is said, no one who has never experienced it can possibly 
concei\re. It induces in him a habit of original reflection upon sub- 
jects of importance. It makes him slow to believe a thing, merely 
because many believe it-=-merely because it has long been believed. 
It renders him open to conviction, for he cannot forget that the^re 
was a time when he held opinions which he now clearly sees to be 



76 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

erroneous. Ifc dissolves the spell of Authority ; it makes him dis- 
trustful of Great Names. It lessens his terror of Public Opinion ; 
for he has confronted it — discovered that it shows more teeth than 
it uses — that it harms only those who fear it — that it bows at length 
in homage to him whom it cannot frighten. It throws him upon 
his own moral resources. Formerly, Fear came to his assistance in 
moments of temptation ; hell-fire rolled up its column of Im'id smoke 
before him in the dreaded distance. But now he sees it not. If he 
has the Intelligence to know, the Heart to love, the "Will to choose, 
the Strength to do, the Eight ; he does it, and his life is high, and 
pure, and noble. If Intelligence, or Heart, or Will, or Strength is 
wanting to him, he vacillates ; he is not an integer, his life is not. 
But, in either case, his Acts are the measure of his Worth. 

Moreover, the struggle of a heretic with the practical difficulties 
of life, and particularly his early struggle, is apt to be a hard one; 
for, generally^ the Rich, the Respectable, the Talented, and the. 
Virtuous of a nation are ranged on the side of its Orthodoxy in an 
overwhelming majority. They feel themselves alHed with it — de- 
pendent upon it. Above all, they believe in it, and think they 
would be damned if they did not. They are slow to give their 
countenance to one who dissents from their creed, even though he 
aspire only to make their shoes, or clean them, and though they 
more than suspect that the rival shoemaker round the corner keeps 
a religious newspaper on his counter solely for the effect of the 
thing upon pious consumers of shoe-leather. 

To depart from the established Faith, then, must be accounted a 
risk, a danger, a thing uncomfortable and complicating. But, from 
the nettle Danger, alone^ we pluck the flower Safety. And he who 
loves Truth first-^Ad vantage second — w^ill certainly find Truth at 
length, and care httle at what loss of Advantage. So, let every 
man be fully persuaded in his own mind — with which safe and 
salutary text we may take leave of matters theological, and resume 
our story. 

The political events which occurred duriug Horace Greeley's 
residence in Westhaven were numerous and exciting ; some of 
them were of a character to attract the attention of a far less for- 
ward and thoughtful boy than he. Doubtless he read the message 
of President Monroe in 1821, in which the policy of Protection 



DISCOVERS THE HUMBUG OF " DEMOCRACY." 77 

to American Industry was recommended strongly, and advocated 
by arguments so simple that a child could understand them; so 
cogent that no man could refute them — arguments, in fact, pre- 
cisely similar to those which the Tribune has since made familiar 
to the country. In the message of 1822, the president repeated his 
Recommendation, and again in that of 1824. Those were the years 
of the recognition of the South American Eepublics, of the Greek 
enthusiasm, of Lafayette's triumphal progress through the Union ; 
of the occupation of Oregon, of the suppression of Piracy in the 
Gulf of Mexico ; of the Clay, Adams and Jackson controversy. It 
was during the period we are now considering, that Henry Clay 
made his most brilliant efforts in debate, and secured a place in the 
affections of Horace Greeley, which he retained to his dying day. 
It was then, too, that the boy learned to distrust the party who 
claimed to be pre-eminently and exclusively Democratic. 

How attentively he watched the course of political events, how 
intelligently he judged them, at the age of thirteen, may be inferred 
from a passage in an article which he wrote twenty years after, the 
facts of which he stated from his early recollection of them : 

'- The first political contest," he wrote in the Tribune for August 29th, 
1846, " in which we ever took a distinct interest will serve to illustrate this dis- 
tinction [between real and sham democracy]. It was the Presidential Election 
of 1824. Five candidates for President were ofiered, but one of them was 
withdrawn, leaving four, all of them members in regular standing of the so- 
called Republican or Democratic party. But a caucus of one-fourth of the 
members of Congress had selected one of the four (William H. Crawford) as 
the Republican candidate, and it was attempted to make the support of this one 
a test of party orthodoxy and fealty. This was resisted, we think most justly 
and democratically, by three-fourths of the people, including a large major- 
ity of those of this State. But among the prime movers of the caucus wires 
was Martin Van Buren of this State, and here it was gravely proclaimed and 
insisted that Democracy required a blind support of Crawford in preference to 
Adams, Jackson, or Clay, all of the Democratic party, who were competitors 
for the station. A Legislature was chosen as ' Republican' before the people 
generally had begun to think of the Presidency, and, this Legislature, it was 
undoubtingly expected, would choose Crawford Electors of President. But the 
friends of the rival candidates at length began to bestir themselves and de- 
mand that the New York Electors shouM be chosen by a direct vote of the peo- 
ple, and not by a forestalled Legislature. This demand was vehemently re- 



78 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

sisted by Martin Van Buren and those who followed his lead, including the 
leading ' Democratic' politicians and editors ot the State, the ' Albany Argus,' 
' Noah's Enquirer, or National Advocate,' &c. «S:c. The feeling in favor of an 
Election by the people became so strong and general that Gov. Yates, though 
himself a Crawford man, was impelled to call a special session of the Legisla- 
ture for this express purpose. The Assembly passed a bill giving the choice 
to the people by an overwhelming majority, in defiance of the exertions of 
Van Buren, A. C. Flagg, &c. The bill went to the Senate, to which body Silas 
Wright had recently been elected from the Northern District, and elected by 
Glintonian votes on an explicit understanding that he would vote for giving 
the choice of the Electors to the people. He accordingly voted, on one or two 
abstract propositions, that the choice ought to be given to the people. But 
when it came to a direct vote, this same Silas Wright, now Governor, voted to 
deprive the people of that privilege, by postponing the whole subject to tho 
next regular session of the Legislature, when it would be too late for the peo- 
ple to choose Electors for that time. A bare majority (17) of the Senators 
thus withheld from the people the right they demanded. The cabal failed in 
their great object, after all, for several members of the Legislature, elected as 
Democrats, took ground for Mr. Clay, and by uniting with the friends of Mr. 
Adams defeated most of the Crawford Electors, and Crawford lost the Presi- 
dency. We were but thirteen when this took place, but we looked on very 
earnestly, without prejudice, and tried to look beyond the mere names by 
which the contending parties were called. Could we doubt that Democracy 
was on one side and the Democratic party on the other 1 Will ' Democrat' 
attempt to gainsay it now 1 

Mr. Adams was chosen President — as thorough a Democrat, in the true 
sense of the word, as ever lived — a plain, unassuming, upright, and most ca- 
pable statesman. He managed the public affairs so well that nobody could 
really gife a reason for opposing him, and hardly any two gave the same rea- 
son. There was no party conflict during his time respecting the Bank, Tariff, 
Internal Improvements, nor anything else of a substantial character. He 
kept the expenses of the government very moderate. He never turned a man 
out of office because of a difference of political sentiment. Yet it was deter- 
mined at the outset that he should be put down, no matter how well he might 
administer the government, and a combination of the old Jackson, Crawford, 
and Calhoun parties, with the personal adherents of De Witt Clinton, aided by 
a shamefully false and preposterous outcry that he had obtained the Presi- 
dency by a bargain with Mr. Clay, succeeded in returning an Opposition Con- 
gress in the middle of his term, and at its close to put in General Jackson over 
him by a large majority. 

The character of this man Jackson we had studied pretty thoroughly and 
without prejudice. His fatal duel with Dickinson about a horse-race ; his pis- 
toling Colonel Benton in the streets of Nashville ; his forcing his w«.y through 



SHAM AND REAL DEMOCRACY. 79 

the Indian country with his drove of negroes in defiance of the express order 
of the Agent Dinsmore ; his imprisonment of Judge Hall at New Orleans, 
long after the British had left that quarter, and when martial law ought long 
since to have heen set aside ; his irruption into Florida and capture of Spanish 
posts and oflSicers without a shadow of authority to do so ; his threats to cut 
ofif the ears of Senators who censured this conduct in solemn debate — in short, 
his whole life convinced us that the man never was a Democrat, in any proper 
sense of the term, but a violent and lawless despot, after the pattern of Caesar, 
Cromwell, and Napoleon, and unfit to be trusted with power. Of course, we 
went against him, but not against anything really Democratic in him or his 
party. 

That General Jackson in power justified all our previous expectations of him, 
need hardly be said. That he did more to destroy the Kepublican character 
of our government and render it a centralized despotism, than any other 
man could do, we certainly believe. But our correspondent and we would 
probably disagree with regard to the Bank and other questions which con- 
vulsed the Union during his rule, and we will only ask his attention to one 
of them, the earliest, and, in our view, the most significant. 

The Cherokee Indians owned, and had ever occupied, an extensive tract of 
country lying within the geographical limits of Georgia, Alabama, kc. It was 
theirs by the best possible title — theirs by our solemn and reiterated Treaty 
stipulations. We had repeatedly bought from them slices of their lands, 
solemnly guarantying to them all that we did not buy, and agreeing to de- 
fend them therein against all agressors. We had promised to keep all intrud- 
ers out of their territory. At least one of these Treaties was signed by Gen. 
Jackson himself ; Others by Washington, Jefferson, <fcc. All the usual pre- 
texts for agression upon Indians failed in this case. The Cherokees had been 
our friends and allies for many years ; they had committed no depredations,; 
they were peaceful, industrious, in good part Christianized, had a newspaper 
printed in their own tongue, and were fast improving in the knowledge and 
application of the arts of civilized life. They compared favorably every way 
with their white neighbors. But the Georgians coveted their fertile lands, 
and determined to have them ; they set them up in a lottery and gambled 
them off among themselves, and resolved to take possession. A fraudulent 
Treaty was made between a few Cherokees of no authority or consideration 
and sundry white agents, including one ' who stole the livery of Heaven to 
serve the devil in,' but everybody scoffed at this mockery, as did ninety-nine 
hundredths of the Cherokees. 

Now Georgia, during Mr. Adams' Administration, attempted to extend her 
jurisdiction over these poor people. Mr. Adams, finding remonstrance of no 
avail, stationed a part of the army at a proper point, prepared to drive all 
intruders out of the Cherokee country, as we had by treaty solemnly engaged 
to do. This answered the purpose. Georgia blustered, but dared not go fur- 



80 AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT. 

ther. She went en viasse for Jackson, of course. When he camo in, she pr(> 
ceeded at once to extend her jurisdiction over the Cherokees in very deed. 
They remonstrated — pointed to their broken treaties, and urged the President 
to perform his sworn duty, and protect them, but in vain. Georgia seized a 
Cherokee accused of killing another Cherokee in their own country, tried him 
for and convicted him of murder. He sued out a writ of error, carried the 
case up to the U. S. Supreme Court, and there obtained a decision in his favor, 
establishing the utter illegality as well as injustice of the acts of Georgia in 
the premises, the validity of our treaties with the Cherokees, and the conse- 
quent duty of the President to see them enforced, any thing in any State-law 
or edict to the contrary notwithstanding, was explicitely afl&rmed. But Presi- 
dent Jackson decided that Georgia was right and the Supreme Court wrong, 
and refused to enforce the decision of the latter. So the Court was defied, the 
Cherokee hung, the Cherokee country given up to the cupidity of the Geor- 
gians, and its rightful owners driven across the Mississippi, virtually at the 
point of the bayonet. That case changed the nature of our Government, 
making the President Supreme Judge of the Law as well as its Chief Min- 
ister — in other words, Dictator. " Amen ! Hurrah for Jackson !" said the 
Pharisaic Democracy of Party and Spoils. "We could not say it after them. 
"We considered our nation perjured in the trampling down and exile of these 
Cherokees ; perjury would have lain heavy on our soul had we approved and 
promoted the deed. 

On another occasion, when Silas Wright was nominated for Gov- 
ernor of the State of New York, the Tribune broke forth : " The 
' notorious Seventeen' — ^what New-Yorker has not heard of them? 
— ^yet how small a proportion of our present voting population re- 
tain a vivid and distinct recollection of the outrage on Kepubhcan- 
ism and Popular Eights which made the ' Seventeen' sounenviably 
notorious ! The Editor of the Tribune is of that proportion, be it 
small or large. Though a boy in 1824, and living a mile across the 
Vermont hne of the State, he can never forget the indignation 
awakened by that outrage, which made him for ever an adversary 
of the Albany Regency and the demagogues who here and else- 
where made use of the terms ' Democracy,' ' Democrats,' ' Demo- 
cratic party,' to hoodwink and cajole the credulous and unthinking 
— to divert their attention from things to names — to divest them of 
independent and manly thought, and lead them blindfold wherever 
the intriguers' interests shall dictate — ^to establish a real Aristocracy 
under the abused name of Democracy. It was 1824 which taught 
many beside us the nature of this swindle, and fired them with un- 



IMPATIENT TO BEGIN HIS APPRENTICESHIP. 81 

conquerable zeal and resolution to defeat the fraud by exposing it 
to the apprehension of a duped and betrayed people." 

These extracts will assist the reader to recall the political excite- 
ments of the time. And he may weU esteem it extraordinary for a 
boy of thirteen — an age when a boy is, generally, most a boy — to 
understand them so well, and to be interested in them so deeply. 
It should be remembered, however, that in remote country places, 
where the topics of conversation are few, all the people take a de- 
gree of interest in politics, and talk about political questions with a 
frequency and pertinacity of which the busy inhabitants of cities 
can form little idea. 

Horace's last year in "Westhaven (1825) wore slowly away. He 
had exhausted the schools ; he was impatient to be at the types, 
and he wearied his father with importunities to get him a place in 
a printing-office. But his father was loth to let him go, for two 
reasons : the boy was useful at home, and the cautious father feared" 
he would not do well away from home ; he was so gentle, so ab 
sent, so awkward, so little calculated to make his way with strar 
gers. One day, the boy saw in the " Northern Spectator," a weekli; 
paper, published at East Poultney, eleven miles distant, an adver- 
tisement for an apprentice in the office of the " Spectator " itself. 
He showed it to his father, and wrung from him a reluctant con- 
sent to his applying for the place. "I have n't got time to go an(? 
see about it, Horace ; but if you have a mind to walk over to Poult- 
ney and see what you can do, why you may." 

Horr.ce had a mind to. 

4* 



CHAPTER VI. 

APPRENTICESHIP. 

fhe Village of East Poultney— Horace applies for the Place— Scene in the Garden- 
He makes an Impression — A difficulty arises and is overcome — He enters the 
office— Rite of Initiation— Horace the Victor— His employer's recollections of hin' 
—The Pack of Cards— Horace begins to paragraph— Joins the Debating Society— 
His manner of Debating— Horace and the Dandy— His noble conduct to his 
father — His first glimpse of Saratoga — His manners at the Table — Becomes the 
Town-Encyclopedia— The Doctor's Story— Recollections of one of his fellow ap- 
prentices—Horace's favorite Poets— Politics of the time— The Anti-Mason Excite- 
ment—The Northern Spectator stops— The Apprentice is Free. 

East Poultney is not, decidedly not, a place which a traveler — 
if, by any extraordinary chance, a traveler should ever visit it — 
vv^ould naturally suspect of a newspaper. But, in one of the most 
densely-populated parts of the city of New York, there is a field ! 
— a veritable, indubitable field, with a cow in it, a rough wooden 
fence around it, and a small, low, wooden house in the middle of it, 
where an old gentleman lives, who lived there when all was rural 
around him, and who means to live there all his days, pasturing his 
cow an<d raising his potatoes on ground which he could sell — but 
won't — at a considerable number of dollars per foot. The field in 
the metropolis we can account for. But that a newspaper should 
ever have been published at East Poultney, Rutland county, Ver- 
mont, seems, afthe first view of it, inexplicable. 

Vermont, however, is a land of villages ; and the business which 
is elsewhere done only in large towns is, in that State, divided 
among the villages in the country. Thus, the stranger is astonished 
at seeing among the few signboards of mere hamlets, one or two 
containing most unexpected and metropolitan announcements, such 
as, " SiLVEESMiTH," " Oegan Faotoey," " Piano Eoetes," " Peint- 
iNa Office," or " Patent Melodeons." East Poultney, for example, 
is little more than a hamlet, yet it once had a newspaper, and 
boasts a small factory of melodeons at this moment. A foreigner 



THE VILLAGE OF EAST POULTNEY. 83 

would as soon expect to see there aa Italian opera house or a 
French cafe. 

The Poultney river is a small stream that flows through a valley, 
which widens and narrows, narrows and widens, all along its course ; 
here, a rocky gorge ; a grassy plain, beyond. At one of its narrow 
places, where the two ranges of hills approach and nod to one 
another, and where the river pours through a rocky channel — a 
torrent on a very' small scale — the little village nestles, a cluster of 
houses at the base of an enormous hill. It is built round a small 
triangular green, in the middle of which is a church, with a hand- 
some clock in its steeple, all complete except the works, and bear- 
ing on its ample face the date, 1805. Ko village, however minute, 
can get on without three churches, representing the Conservative, 
the Enthusiastic, and Eccentric tendencies of human nature ; and, 
of course. East Poultney has three. It has likewise the most 
remarkably shabby and dilapidated school-house in all the country 
round. There is a store or two ; but business is not brisk, and 
when a customer arrives in town, perhaps, his first difficulty will be 
to find the storekeeper, who has locked up his store and gone to 
hoe in his garden or talk to the blacksmith. A tavern, a furnace, a 
saw-mill, and forty dwelling houses, nearly complete the inventory 
of the village. The place has a neglected and ' seedy ' aspect which 
is rare in !New England. In that remote and sequestered spot, it 
seems to have been forgotten, and left behind in the march of prog- 
ress ; and the people, giving up the hope and the endeavor, to catch 
up, have settled down to the tranquil enjoyment of Things as they 
Are. The village cemetery, near by, — more populous far than the 
village, for the village is an old one — is upon the side of a steep 
ascent, and whole ranks of gravestones bow, submissive to the 
law of gravitation, and no man sets them upright. A quiet, slow 
little place is East Poultney. Thirty years ago, the people were a 
little more wide awake, and there were a few more of them. 

It was a fine spring morning in the year 1826, about ten o'clock, 
when Mr. Amos Bliss, the manager, and one of the proprietors, of 
the Northern Spectator, 'might have been seen' in the garden be- 
hind his house planting potatoes. He heard the gate open behind 
him, and, without turning or looking round, became dimly conscious 
of the presence of a boy. But the boys of country villages go into 



84 ^VPPRENTlCESinP. 

whosesoever garden their wandering fancy impels them, and suppos- 
ing this boy to be one of his own neighbors, Mr. Bliss continued 
his work and quickly forgot that he was not alone. In a few min- 
utes, he heard a voice close behind him, a strange voice, high- 
pitched and whining. 

It said, " Are you the man that carries on the printing office ?" 

Mr. Bliss then turned, and resting upon his hoe, surveyed the per- 
son who had thus addressed him. He saw standing before him a 
boy apparently about fifteen years of age, of a light, tall, and slen- 
der form, dressed in the plain, farmer's cloth of the time, his gar- 
ments cut witli an utter disregard of elegance and fit. His trou- 
sers were exceedingly short and voluminous ; he wore no stockings ; 
his shoes were of the kind denominated 'high-lows,' and much 
worn down ; his hat was of felt, ' one of the old stamp, with so 
small a brim, that it looked more like a two-quart measure inverted 
than anything else ;' and it was worn far back on his head ; his hair 
was white, with a tinge of orange at its extremities, and it lay 
thinly upon a broad forehead and over a head 'rocking on shoulders 
which seemed too slender to support the weight of a member so 
disproportioned to the general outline.' The general effect of the 
figure and its costume was so outre^ they presented such a combina- 
tion of the rustic and ludicrous, and the apparition had come upon 
him so suddenly, that the amiable gardener could scarcely keep 
from laughing. 

He restrained himself, however, and replied, " Yes, I 'm the 
man." 

Whereupon the stranger asked, " Don't you want a boy to learn 
the trade ?" 

" Well," said Mr. Bliss, " we have been thinking of it. Do you 
want to learn to print ?" 

" I 've had some notion of it," said the boy in true Yankee fash- 
ion, as though he had not been dreaming about it, and longing for 
it for years. 

Mr. Bliss was both astonished and puzzled— astonished that such 
a fellow as the boy looTced to be, should have ever thought of learn- 
ing to print, and puzzled how to convey to him an idea of the ab- 
surdity of the notion. So, with an expresssion in his countenance, 
Buch as that of a tender-hearted dry-goods merchant might be sup- 



HORACE APPLIES FOR THE PLACE, 85 

posed to assume if a hod-carrier should apply for a p-ace in tlie lace 
department, he said, " Well, my boy— but, you know, it takes con- 
siderable learning to be a printer. Have you been to school much ?" 

" No," said the boy, " I hav 'nt had much chance at school. I 've 
read some." 

" What have you read ?" asked Mr. Bliss. 

" Well, I 've read some history, and some travels, and a little of 
most everything." 

" Where do you live?" 

" At Westhaven." 

" How did you come over ?" 

" I came on foot." 

" What's your name?" 

" Horace Greeley." 

Now it happened that Mr. Amos Bliss had been for the last three 
years an Inspector of Common Schools, and in fulfilling the duties 
of his office — examining and hcensing teachers — he had acquired an 
uncommon facility in asking questions, and a fondness for that ex- 
ercise which men generally entertain for any employment in which 
they suppose themselves to excel. The youth before him was— in the 
language of medical students— a 'fresh subject,' and the Inspector 
proceeded to try all his skill upon him, advancing from easy ques- 
tions to hard ones, up to those knotty problems with which he had 
been wont to ' stump' candidates for the office of teacher. The 
boy was a match for him. He answered every question promptly, 
clearly and modestly. He could not be ' stumped' in the ordinary 
school studies, and of the books he had read he could give a correct 
and complete analysis. In Mr. Bliss's own account of the inter- 
view, he says, " On entering into conversation, and a partial exam- 
ination of the qualifications of my new applicant, it required but little 
time to discover that he possessed a mind of no common order, and 
an acquired intelligence far beyond his years. He had had but little 
opportunity at the common school, but he said 'he had read some,' 
and what he had read he well understood and remembered. In 
addition to the ripe intelligence manifested in one so young, and 
whose instruction had been so limited, there was a single-minded- 
ness, a truthfulness and common sense in what he said, that at 
once commanded my regard." 



86 APPRENTICESHIP. 

After half an hour's conversation "with the boy, Mr. Bliss intimat- 
ed that he thought he would do, and told him to go into the print- 
ing-oflSce and talk to the foreman. Horace went to the printmg- 
office, and there his appearance produced an effect on the tender 
minds of the three apprentices who were at work therein, which 
can he much better imagined than described, and which is most 
vividly remembered by the two who survive. To the foreman 
Horace addressed himself, regardless certainly, oblivious probably, 
of the stare and the remarks of the boys. The foreman, at first, 
was inclined to wonder that Mr. Bliss shoulcl, for one moment, 
think it possible that a boy got up in that style could perform the 
most ordinary duties of a printer's apprentice. Ten minutes' talk 
with him, however, effected a partial revolution in his mind in the 
boy's favor, and as he was greatly in want of another apprentice, 
he was not inclined to be over particular. He tore off a slip of 
proof-paper, wrote a few words upon it hastily with a pencil, and 
told the boy to take it to Mr. Bliss. That piece of paper was his 
fate. The words were : ' Guess we ''d tetter try him.'' Away went 
Horace to the garden, and presented his paper. Mr. Bliss, whose 
curiosity had been excited to a high pitch by the extraordinary 
contrast between the appearance of the boy and his real quality, 
now entered into a long conversation with him, questioned him 
respecting his history, his past employments, his parents, their cir- 
cumstances, his own intentions and wishes ; and the longer he talk- 
ed, the more his admiration grew. The result was, that he agreed 
to accept Horace as an apprentice, provided his father would agree 
to the usual terms ; and then, with eager steps, and a light heart, " 
the happy boy took the dusty road that led to his home in "West- 
haven. 

"You 're not going to hire that tow-head, Mr. Bliss, are you?" 
asked one of the apprentices at the close of the day. " I am," was 
the reply, " and if you boys are expecting to get any fun out of 
him, you 'd better get it quick, or you '11 be too late. There 's some- 
thing hi that tow-head, as you '11 find out before you 're a week 
older." 

A day or two after Horace packed up his wardrobe in a small 
cotton handkerchief. Small as it was, it would have held more •, 
for its proprietor never had more than two shirts, and one change 



A DIFFICLLTY ARISES AND IS OVERCOME. 87 

of outer-clothing, at the same time, till he was of age. Father and 
son walked, side by side, to Poultney, the boy carrying his possess- 
ions upon a stick over his shoulder. 

At Poultney, an unexpected difficulty arose, which for a time made 
Horace tremble in his high-low shoes. The terms proposed by Mr. 
Bliss were, that the boy should be bound for five years, and receive 
his board and twenty O.ollars a year. Now, Mr. Greeley had ideas 
of his own on the subject of apprenticeship, and he objected to this 
proposal, and to every particular of it. In the first place, he had 
determined that no child of his should ever be bound at all. In the 
second place, he thought five years an unreasonable time ; thirdly, 
he considered that twenty doUars a year and board was a compen- 
sation ridiculously disproportionate to the services which Horace 
would be required to render ; and finally, on each and all of these 
points, he clung to his opinion with the tenacity of a Greeley. Mr. 
Bliss appealed to the established custom of the country ; five years 
was the usual period ; the compensation offered was the regular 
thing ; the binding was a point essential to the employer's interest. 
And at every pause in the conversation, the appealing voice of Hor- 
ace was heard : " Father, I guess you 'd better make a bargain with 
Ml*. Bliss;" or, "Father, I guess it won't make much diiference ;" 
or, "Don't you think you'd better do it, father?" At one mo- 
ment the boy was reduced to despair. Mr. Bliss had given it as 
his liltimatum that the proposed binding was absolutely indispensa- 
ble ; he " could do business in no other way." "Well, then, Hor- 
ace," said the father, "let us go home." The father turned to go ; 
but Horace lingered ; he could not give it up ; and so the father 
turned again ; the negotiation was re-opened, and after a prolonged 
discussion, a compromise was eff'ected. "What the terms were, that 
were finally agreed to, I cannot positively state, for the three me- 
moirs which I have consulted upon the subject give three diff'erent 
replies. Probably, however, they were — no binding, and no money 
for six months ; then the boy could, if he chose, bind himself for 
the remainder of the five years, at forty dollars a year, the appren- 
tice to be boarded from the beginning. And so the father went 
home, and the son went straight to the printing office and took his 
first lesson in the art of setting type. 

A few months after, it may be as well to mention here, Mr. 



88 APPRENTICESHIP. 

Greeley removed to Erie county, Pennsylvania, and bought some 
wild land tliere, from w^hich he gradually created a farm, leaving 
Horace alone in Vermont. Grass now grows where the little house 
stood in Westhaven, in which the family lived longest, and the barn 
in which they stored their hay and kept their cattle, leans forward 
like a kneeling elephant, and lets in the daylight' through ten 
thousand apertures. But the neighbors point out the tree that 
stood before their front door, and the tree that shaded the kitchen 
window, and the tree that stood behind the house, and the tree 
whose apples Horace liked, and the bed of mint with which he re- 
galed his nose. And both the people of Westhaven and those of 
Amherst assert that whenever the Editor of the Tribune revisits 
the scenes of his early life, at the season when apples are ripe, one 
of the things that he is surest to do, is to visit the apple trees that 
produce the fruit which he liked best when he was a boy, and 
which he still prefers before all the apples of the world. 

The new apprentice took his place at the font, and received from 
the foreman his ' copy,' composing stick, and a few words of in- 
struction, and then he addressed himself to his task. He needed 
no further assistance. The mysteries of the craft he seemed to 
comprehend intuitively. He had thought of his chosen vocation 
for many years ; he had formed a notion how the types must be ar- 
ranged in order to produce the desired impression, and, therefoi>c, 
all he had to acquire was manual dexterity. In perfect silence, 
without looking to the right hand or to the left, heedless of the 
sayings and doings of the other apprentices, though they were bent 
on mischief, and tried to attract and distract his attention, Hor- 
ace worked on, hour after hour, all that day ; and when he left the 
office at night could set type better and faster than many an ap- 
prentice who had had a month's practice. The next day, he worked 
with the same silence and intensity. The boys were puzzled. 
They thought it absolutely incumbent on them to perform an initiat- 
ing rite of some kind ; but the new boy gave them no handle, 
no excuse, no opening. He committed no greenness, he spoke to no 
one, looked at no one, seemed utterly oblivious of every thing save 
only his copy and his type. They threw type at him, but he never 
looked around. They talked saucily at him, but he threw back no 
retort. This would never do. Towards the close of the third day, 



89 

the oldest apprentices took one of the large black balls Avith which 
printers used to dab the ink upon the type, and remarking that in 
Lis opinion Horace's hair was of too light a hue for so black an 
art as that which he had undertaken to learn, applied the ball, 
well inked, to Horace's head, making four distinct dabs. The boj^s, 
the journeyman, the pressman and the editor, all paused in their 
work to observe the result of this experiment. Horace neither 
spoke nor moved. He went on with his work as though nothing 
had happened, and soon a£ter went to the tavern where he boarded, 
and spent an hour in purifying his dishonored locks. And that was 
all the ' fun ' the boys ' got out ' of their new companion on tliat 
occasion. They were conquered. In a few days the victor and the 
vanquished were excellent friends. 

Horace was now fortunately situated. Ampler means of acquir- 
ing knowledge were within his reach than he had ever before en- 
joyed ; nor were there wanting opportunities for the display of his 
acquisitions and the exercise of his powers. 

" About this time," writes Mr. Bliss, " a sound, well-read theologian and a 
practical printer was employed to edit and conduct the paper. This opened a 
desirable school for intellectual culture to our young debutant. Debates en- 
sued ; historical, political, and religious questions were discussed ; and often 
while all hands were engaged at the font of types ; and here the purpose for 
which our young aspirant "had read some" was made manifest. Such was 
the correctness of his memory in what he had read, in both biblical and pro- 
fane history, that the reverend gentleman was often put at fault by his correc- 
tions. He always quoted chapter and verse to prove the point in dispute. On 
one occasion the editor said that money was the root of all evil, when he was 
corrected by the * devil,' who said he believed it read in the Bible that the love 
of money was the root of all evil. 

" A small town library gave him access to books, by which, together with 
the reading of the exchange papers of the office, he improved all his leisure 
hours. He became a frequent talker in our village lyceum, and often wrote 
dissertations. 

"In the first organization of our village temperance society, the question 
arose as to the age when the young might become members. Fearing lest his 
own age might bar him, he moved that they be received when they were old 
enough to drink — which was adopted nem. con. 

" Though modest and retiring, he was often led into political discussions 
with our ablest politicians, and few would leave the field without feeling in- 



90 APPRENTICESHIP. 

gtruoied by the sounduess of his vie-ws and the unerring correctness of his 
statements of political events, 

" Having a thirst for knowledge, he bent his mind and all his energies to its 
acquisition, with unceasing application and untiring devotion ; and I doubt if, 
in the whole term of his apprenticeship, he ever spent an hour in the common 
recreations of young men. He used to pass my door as he went to his daily 
meals, and though I often sat near, or stood in the way, so much absorbed did 
he appear in his own thoughts — his head bent forward and his eyes fixed 
upon the ground, that I have the charity to believe the reason why he never 
turned his head or gave me a look, was because he had no idea I was 
there !" 

On one point the reminiscences of Mr. Bliss require correction. 
He thinks that his apprentice never spent an hour in the common 
recreations of young men during his residence in Poultney. Mr. 
Bhss, however, was his senior and his employer ; and therefore 
observed him at a distance and from above. But I, who have con- 
versed with those who were the friends and acquaintances of the 
youth, can tell a better story. He had a remarkable fondness for 
games of mingled skill and chance, such as whist, draughts, chess, 
and others ; and the office was never without its dingy pack of 
cards, carefully concealed from the reverend editor and the serious 
customers, but brought out from its hiding-place whenever the 
coast was clear and the boys had a leisure hour. Horace never 
gambled, nor would he touch the cards on Sunday ; but the delight 
of playing a game occasionally was heightened, perhaps, by the fact 
that in East Poultney a pack of cards was regarded as a thing ac- 
cursed, not fit for saintly hands to touch. Bee-hunting, too, con- 
tinued to be a favorite amusement with Horace. " He was always 
ready for a bee-hunt," says one who knew him well in Poultney, 
and bee-hunted with him often in the woods above the village. To 
finish with this matter of amusement, I may mention that a danc- 
ing-school was held occasionally at the village-tavern, and Horace 
was earnestly (ironically, perhaps) urged to join it ; but he refused. 
Not that he disapproved of the dance — that best of all home recrea- 
tions — but he fancied he was not exactly the figure for a quadrille. 
He occasionally looked in at the door of the dancing-room, but 
never could be prevailed upon to enter it. 

Until he came to live at Poultney, Horace had never tried his hand 



JOINS A DEBATINa SOCIETY. 91 

ot original composition. The injurious practice of writing ' compo- 
sitions' was not among tlie exercises of any of the schools which he 
had attended. At Poultney, very early in his apprenticeship, he 
began, not indeed to write, but to compose paragraphs for the pa- 
per as he stood at the desk, and to set them in type as he composed 
them. They were generally items of news condensed from large 
articles in the exchange papers ; but occasionally he composed an 
original paragraph of some length ; and he continued to render edi- 
torial assistance of this kind all the while he remained in the office. 
The * IsTorthern Spectator' was an ' Adams paper,' and Horace was 
an Adams man. 

The Debating Society, to which Mr. Bliss alludes, was an impor- 
tant feature in the life of East Poultney. There happened to be 
among the residents of the place, during the apprenticeship of Hor- 
ace Greeley, a considerable number of intelligent men, men of some 
knowledge and talent— the editor of the paper, the village doctor, 
a county judge, a clergyman or two, two or three persons of some 
political eminence, a few well-informed mechanics, farmers, and 
others. These gentlemen had formed themselves into a ' Lyceum,' 
before the arrival of Horace, and the Lyceum had become so 
famous in the neighborhood, that people frequently came a distance 
of ten miles to attend its meetings. It assembled weekly, in the 
winter, at the little brick school-house. An original essay was read 
by the member whose ' turn ' it was to do so, ^nd then the question 
of the evening was debated ; first, by four members who had been 
designated at the previous meeting, and after they had each spoken 
once, the question was open to the whole society. The questions 
were mostly of a very innocent and rudimental character, as, 'Is 
novel-reading injurious to society V 'Has a person a right to take 
life in self-defence ?' 'Is marriage conducive to happiness?' 'Do 
we, as a nation, exert a good moral influence in the world'?' 'Do 
either of the great parties of the day carry out the principles of the 
Declaration of Independence ?' ' Is the Union likely to be perpetu- 
ated ?' ' Was Napoleon Bonaparte a great man V ' Is it a person's 
duty to take the temperance pledge ?' et cetera. 

Horace joined the society, the first winter of his residence in 
Poultney, and, young as he was, soon became one of its leading 
members. " He was a i ?al giant at the Debating Society," says 



92 . APPRENTICESHIP. 

one of his early admirers. " Whenever he was appointed to speak 
or to read an essay, he never wanted to be excused ; he was always 
ready. He was exceedingly interested in the questions which he 
discussed, and stuck to his opinion against all opposition — not dis- 
courteously, but still Jie stuck to it^ replying with the most perfect 
assurance to men of high station and of low. He had one advan- 
tage over all his fellow members ; it was his memory. He had read 
everything, and remembered the minutest details of important 
events ; dates, names, places, ligures, statistics — nothing had escaped 
him. He was never treated as a ioy in the society, but as a man 
and an equal ; and his opinions were considered with as much de- 
ference as those of the judge or the sheriff — more, I think. To the 
graces of oratory he made no pretence, but he was a fluent and 
interesting speaker, and had a way of giving an unexpected turn to 
the debate by reminding members of a fact, well known but over- 
looked ; or by correcting a mi squotation, or by appealing to what 
are called first principles. He was an opponent to be afraid of ; 
yet his sincerity and his earnestness were so evident, that those 
whom he most signally floored liked him none the less for it. He 
never lost his temper. In short, he spoke in his sixteenth year just 
as he speaks now ; and when he came a year ago to lecture in a 
neighboring village, I saw before me the Horace Greeley of the 
old Poultney ' Forum,' as we called it, and no other." 

It is hardly necessary to record, that Horace never made the 
slightest preparation for the meetings of the Debating Society in 
the way of dress — except so far as to put on his jacket. In the 
summer, he was accustomed to wear, while at work, two garments, 
a shirt and trowsers ; and when the reader considers that his trow- 
sers were very short, his sleeves tucked up above his elbows, his 
shirt open in front, he will have before his mind's eye the picture 
of a youth attired with extreme simplicity. In his walks about the 
village, he added to his dress a straw hat, valued originally at one 
shilling. In the winter, his clothing was really insufficient. So, at 
least, thought a kind-hearted lady who used to see him pass her 
window on his way to dinner. "He never," she says, "had an 
overcoat while he lived here; and I used to pity him so much in 
cold weather. I remember him as a 'slender, pale little fellow, 
younger looking than he really ^as, in a brown jacket much too 



HIS FIRST GLIMPSE AT SARATOGA. ' 93 

short for him. I used to think the winds would blow him away 
sometimes, as he crept along the fence lost in thought, with his 
head down, and his hands in his pockets. He was often laughed 
at for his homely dress, by the boys. Once, when a very interest- 
ing question was to be debated at the school-house, a young man 
who was noted among us for the elegance of his dress and the 
length of his account at the store, advised Horace to get a new ' rig 
out ' for the occasion, particularly as he was to lead one of the 
sides, and an unusually large audience was expected to be present. 
' No,' said Horace, ' I guess I 'd better w^ear my old clothes than 
run in debt for new ones.' " 

ITow, forty dollars a year is sufficient to provide a boy in the 
country with good and substantial clothing ; half the sum will keep 
him warm and decent. The reader, therefore, may be incHned to 
censure the young debater for his apparent parsimony ; or worse, for 
an insolent disregard of the feelings of others ; or, worst^ for a pride 
that aped humility. The reader, if that be the present inclination 
of his mind, will perhaps experience a revulsion of feeling when he 
is informed — as I now do inform him, and on the best authority — 
that every dollar of the apprentice's little stipend which he could 
save by the most rigid economy, was piously sent to his father, who 
was struggling in the wilderness on the other side of the Alleghanies, 
with the difficulties of a new farm, and an insufficient capital. 
And this was the practice of Horace Greeley during all the years 
of his apprenticeship, and for years afterwards ; as long, in fact, as 
his father's land was unpaid for and inadequately provided with 
implements, buildings, and stock. At a time when filial piety may 
be reckoned among the extinct virtues, it is a pleasure to record a 
fact like this. 

Twice, during his residence at Poultney, Horace visited his 
parents in Pennsylvania, six hundred miles distant, walking a great 
part of the way, and accomplishing the rest on a slow canal boat. 
On one of these tedious journeys he first saw Saratoga, a circum- 
stance to which he alluded seven years after, in a fanciful epistle, 
written from that famous watering-place, and published in the 
"New Yorker": 

" Saratoga ! bright city of 'ihe present ! thou ever-during one-and-t'sveiitj 



94 APPRENTICESHIP. 

of existence ! a wanderer by thy stately palaces and gushing fountains salutes 
thee ! Years, yet not many, have elapsed since, a weary roamer from a dis- 
tant land, he first sought thy health-giving waters. " Novemt)er's sky was 
over earth and him, and more than all, over thee ; and its chilling blasts 
made mournful melody amid the waving branches of thy ever- verdant pines. 
Then, as now, thou wert a City of Tombs, deserted by the gay throng whose 
light laughter re-echoes so joyously through thy summer-robed arbors. But 
to him, thou wert ever a fairy land, and he wished to quaff of thy Hygeian 
treasures as of the nectar of the poet's fables. One long and earnest draught, 
ere its sickening disrelish came over him, and he flung down the cup in the 
bitterness of disappointment and disgust, and sadly addressed him again to 
his pedestrian journey. Is it ever thus with thy castles. Imagination ? thy 
pictures. Fancy 1 thy dreams, Hope ? Perish the unbidden thought ! A 
health, in sparkling Congress, to the rainbow of life ! even though its prom- 
ise prove as shadowy as the baseless fabric of a vision. Better even the 
dear delusion of Hope — if delusion it must be — than the rugged reality of 
listless despair. (I think I could do this better in rhyme, if I had not tres- 
passed in that line already. However, the cabin-conversation of a canal- 
packet is not remarkably favorable to poetry.) In plain prose, there is a 
great deal of mismanagement about this same village of Saratoga. The sea 
son gives up the ghost too easily," &c., &c. 

During the four jeai's that Horace lived at East Poultney, he 
boarded for some time at the tavern, which still affords entertain- 
ment for man and beast — i. e. pedler and horse — in that village. 
It was kept by an estimable couple, who became exceedingly at- 
tached to their singular guest, and he to them. Their recollections 
of him are to the following effect :— Horace at that time ate and 
drank whatever was placed before him ; he was rather fond of good 
living, ate furiously, and fast, and much. He was very fond of coffee, 
but cared little for tea. Every one drank in those days, and there 
was a great deal of drinking at the tavern, but Horace never could 
be tempted to taste a drop of anything intoxicating. " I always," 
said the kind landlady, " took a great interest in young people, and 
when I saw they were going wrong, it used to distress me, no matter 
whom they belonged to ; but I never feared for Horace. "Whatever 
might be going on about the village or in the bar-room, I always 
knew lie would do right." He stood on no ceremony at the table ; 
h^fell to without waiting to be asked or helped, devoured every- 
thing right and left, stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and 



THE doctor's story. 95 

vanished instantly. One day, as Horace was stretching his long 
arm over to the other side of the table in quest of a distant dish, 
the servant, wishing to hint to him in a jocular manner, that that 
was not exactly the most proper way of proceeding, said, " Don't 
trouble yourself, Horace, / want to help you to that dish, for, you 
know, I have a particular regard for you." He blushed, as only a 
boy with a very white face can blush, and, thenceforth, was Jess 
adventurous in exploring the remoter portion* of the table-cloth. 
When any topic of interest was started at the table, he joined in it 
with the utmost confidence, and maintained his opinion against 
anybody, talking with great vivacity, and never angrily. He came, 
at length, to be regarded as a sort of Town Encyclopedia, and if 
any one wanted to know anything, he went, as a matter of course, 
to Horace Greeley ; and, if a dispute arose between two individuals, 
respecticg a point of history, or politics, or science, they referred it 
to Horace Greeley, and whomsoever he declared to be right, was 
confessed to be the victor in the controversy. Horace never went 
to a tea-drinking or a party of any kind, never went on an excur- 
sion, never slept away from home or was absent from one meal 
during the period of his residence at the tavern, except when 
he went to visit his parents. He seldom went to church, but spent 
the Sunday, usually, in reading. He was a stanch Universalist, a 
stanch whig, and a pre-eminently stanch anti-Mason. Thus, the 
landlord and landlady. 

Much of this is curiously confirmed by a story often told in con- 
vivial moments by a distinguished physician of New York, who 
on one occasion chanced to witness at the Poultney tavern the ex- 
ploits, gastronomic and encyclopedic; to which allusion has just 
been made. "Did I e^er tell you," he is wont to begin, " how and 
where I first saw my friend Horace Greeley ?. "Well, thus it hap- 
pened. It was one of the proudest and happiest days of my life. 
I was a country boy then, a farmer's son, and we lived a few miles 
from East Poultney. On the day in question I was sent by my 
father to sell a load of potatoes at the store in East Poultney, and 
bring back various commodities la exchange. Now this was the 
first time, you must know, that I had ever been entrusted with so 
important an errand. I had been to the village with my father 
often enough, but now I was to go alone, and I felt as proud and 



96 APPRENTICESHIP. 

independent as a midshipman the first time he goes ashore in com- 
mand of a boat. Big with the fate of twenty bushels of potatoes, 
off I drove — reached the village — sold out my load — drove round 
to the tavern — put up my horses, and went in to dinner. This going 
to the tavern on my own account, all by myself, and paying my own 
bill, was, I thought, the crowning glory of the whole adventure. 
There were a good many people at dinner, the sheriff of the county 
and an ex-member of Congress among them, and I felt considerably 
abashed at first ; but I had scarcely begun to eat, when my eyes 
fell upon an object so singular that I could do little else than stare 
at it all the while it remained m the room. It was a tall, pale, 
white-haired, gawTcy boy, seated at the further end of the table. 
He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he was eating with a rapidity and 
awkwardness that I never saw equaled before nor since. It seem- 
ed as if he was eating for a wager, and had gone in to win. He 
neither looked up nor round, nor appeared to pay the least attention 
to the conversation. My first thought was, ' This is a pretty sort 
of a tavern to let such a fellow as that sit at the same table with all 
these gentlemen ; he ought to come in with the ostler.' I thought 
it strange, too, that no one seemed to notice him, and I supposed 
he owed his continuance at the table to that circumstance alone. 
And so I sat, eating little myself, and occupied in watching the won- 
derful performance of this wonderful youth. At length the conver- 
sation at the table became quite animated, turning upon some 
measure of an early Congress ; and a question arose how certain 
members had voted on its final passage- There was a difference 
of opinion; and the sheriff, a very finely-dressed personage, I 
thought, to my boundless astonishment, referred the matter to the 
unaccountable Boy, saying, 'Aint that right, Greeley?' 'No,' 
said the Unaccountable, without looking up, ' you 're wrong.' 
' There,' said the ex-member, ' I told you so.' ' And you 're 
wrong, too,' said the still-devouring Mystery. Then he laid down 
his knife and fork, and gave the history of the measure, explained 
the state of parties at the time, stated the vote in dispute, named 
the leading advocates and opponents of the bill, and, in short, gave 
a complete exposition of the whole matter. I listened and won- 
dered ; but what surprised me most was, that the company receiv- 
ed his statement as pure gospel, and as settling the question be- 



KECOLLECTIONS OF ONE OF HIS FELLOW APPRENTICES. 97 

yond dispute — as a dictionary settles a dispute respecting the spell- 
ing of a Avord. A minute after, the boy left the dining-room, and I 
never saw him again, till I met him, years after, in the streets of 
New York, when I claimed acquaintance with him as a brother 
Vermonter, and told him this siory, to his great amusement." 

One of his fellow-apprentices favors me with some interesting 
reminiscences. He says, " I was a fellow-apprentice with Horace 
Greeley at Poultney for nearly two years. We boarded together 
during that period at four different places, and we were constantly 
together." The following passage from a letter from this early 
friend of our hero will be welcome to the reader, notwithstanding 
its repetitions of a few facts already known to him : — 

Little did the inliabitants of East Poultney. where Horace Greeley went to 
reside in April, 1826, as an apprentice to the printing business, dream of the 
potent influence he was a few years later destined to exert, not only upon the 
politics of a neighboring State, but upon the noblest and grandest philan- 
thropic enterprises of the age. He was then a remarkably plain-looking unso- 
phisticated lad of fifteen, with a slouching, careless gait, leaning away for- 
ward as he walked, as if both his head and his heels were too heavy for his 
body. He wore a wool hat of the old stamp, with so small a brim, that it 
looked more like a two-quart measure inverted than a hat ; and he had a sin- 
gular, whining voice that provoked the merrimentof the older apprentices, who 
had hardly themselves outgrown, in their brief village residence, similar pecu- 
liarities of country breeding. But the rogues could not help pluming themselves 
upon their superior manners and position ; and it must be confessed that the 
young ' stranger ' was mercilessly ' taken in ' by his elders in the ofiSce, when- 
ever an opportunity for a practical joke presented itself. 

But these things soon passed away, and as Horace was seen to be an un- 
usually intelligent and honest lad, he came to be better appreciated. The oflBce 
in which he was employed was that of the " Northern Spectator," a weekly 
paper then published by Messrs. Bliss & Dewey, and edited by E. Q-. Stone, 
brother to the late Col. Stone of the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. The new 
comer boarded in Mr. Stone's family, by whom he was well esteemed for his 
boyish integrity ; and Mr. S. on examination found him better skilled in Eng- 
lish grammar, even at that early age, than were the majority of school teach- 
ers in those times. His superior intelligence also strongly commended 
him to the notice of Amos Bliss, Esq., one of the firm already mentioned, 
then and now a highly-respectable merchant of East Poultney, who has 
marked with pride and pleasure every successive step of the • Westhaven boy,* 
from that day to this, 

5 



98 APPRENTICESHIP. 

Ie. consequence of the change of proprietors, editors and other things per- 
taining to the management of the Spectator office, Horace had, during the 
term of his apprenticeship, about as many opportunities of ' boarding round,' 
as ordinarily fall to the lot of a country schoolmaster. In 1827, he boarded 
at the ' Eagle tavern,' which was then kept by Mr. Harlow Hosford, and was 
the head-quarters of social and fashionable life in that pleasant old village. 
There the balls and village parties were had, there the oysters suppers came 
off, and there the lawyers, politicians and village oracles nightly congregated. 
Horace was no hand for ordinary boyish sports ; the rough and tumble games 
of wrestling, running, etc., he had no relish for ; but he was a diligent student 
in his leisure hours, and eagerly read everything in the way of books and 
papers that he could lay his hands on. And it was curious to see what a power 
of mental application he had — a power which enabled him, seated in the bar- 
room, (where, perhaps, a dozen people were in earnest conversation,) to pursue 
undisturbed the reading of his favorite book, whatever it might be, with evi- 
dently as close attention and as much satisfaction as if he had been seated 
alone in his chamber. 

If there ever was a self-made man, this same Horace Greeley is one, for 
he had neither wealthy or influential friends, collegiate or academic educa- 
tion, nor anything to start him in the world, save his own native good sense^ 
an unconquerable love of study, and a determination to win his way by his 
•own efforts. He had, however, a natural aptitude for arithmetical calcula- 
tions, and could easily surpass, in his boyhood, most persons of his age in th» 
facility and accuracy of his demonstrations ; and his knowledge of gramroax 
has been already noted. He early learned to observe and remember politicaJ 
statistics, and the leading men and measures of the political parties, the va.- 
rious and multitudinous candidates for governor and Congress, not only m *»- 
single State, but in many, and finally in all tha States, together with the lo- 
cation and vote of this, that, and the other congressional districtr, (whig, dem- 
ocratic and what not,) at all manner of elections. These things ho rapidly and 
easily mastered, and treasured in his capacious memory, till we venture to say 
he has few if any equals at this time, in this particular department, in thii" 
or any other country. I never knew but one man who approached him in this 
particular, and that was Edwin Williams, compiler of the N. Y. State Reg- 



Anotber letter from the same friend contains information stil^ 
more valuable. "Judging," he writes, "from what I do certainly 
know of him, I can say that few young men of my acquaintance 
grew up with so much freedom from everything of a vicious and 
corrupting nature — so strong a resolution to study everything ip 
the way of useful knowledge — and such a quick and clear percep 



POLITICS OF THE TIME. \f\) 

tion of the queer and humorous, whether in print or in actual life 
His love of the poets — Byron, Shakspeare, etc., discovered itself ia 
boyhood — and often have Greeley and I strolled off into the woods, 
of a warm day, with a volume of Byron or Campbell in our pockets, 
and reclining in some shady place, read it off to each other by the 
hour. In this way, I got such a hold of ' Childe Harold,' the ' Pleas- 
ures of Hope,' and other favorite poems, that considerable portions 
have remained ever since in my memory. Byron's apostrophe to 
the Ocean, and some things in the [4th] canto relative to the men 
and monuments of ancient Italy, were, if I mistake not, his special 
•favorites — also the famous description of the great conflict at 
"Waterloo. ' Mazeppa ' was also a marked favorite. And for many 
of Mrs. Hemans' poems he had a deep admiration." 

The letter concludes with an honest burst of indignation; 
" Knowing Horace Greeley as I do and have done for thirty years, 
knowing his integrity, purity, and generosity, I can tell you one 
thing, and that is, that the contempt with which I regard the slan- 
ders of certain papers with respect to his conduct, and character, is 
quite inexpressible. There is doubtless a proper excuse for the con- 
duct of lunatics, mad dogs, and rattlesnakes ; but I know of no decent, 
just, or reasonable apology for such meanness (it is a hard word, but 
a very expressive one) as the presses alluded to have exhibited." 

Horace came to Poultney, an ardent politician ; and the- even^ 
which occurred during his apprenticeship were not calculated to 
moderate his zeal, or weaken his attachment to the party he had 
chosen. John Quincy Adams was president, Calhoun was vice- 
president, Henry Clay was secretary of State. It was one of the 
best and ablest administrations that had ever ruled in Washington; 
and the most unpopular one. It is among the inconveniences oi 
universal suffrage, that the party which comes before the country 
with the most taking popular Cey is the party which is likeliest to 
win. During the existence of this administration, the Opposition 
had a variety of popular Cries which were easy to vociferate, and 
well adapted to impose on the unthinking, i. e. the majority. 
'Adams had not been elected by the people.' 'Adams had gained 
the presidency by a corrupt bargain with Henry Clay.' 'Adams 
was lavish of the public money.' But of all the Cries of the time, 
' Hurrah for Jackson ' was the most effective. Jackson was a man 



100 APPRENTICESHIP. 

of the j.eople. Jackson was the hero of New Orleans hnd the con- 
queror of Florida. Jackson was pledged to retrenchment and 
reform. Against vociferation of this kind, what availed the fact^ 
evident, incontrovertible, that the affairs of the government were 
conducted with dignity, judgment and moderation?— that the coun- 
try enjoyed prosperity at home, and the respect of the world ? — 
that the claims of American citizens against foreign governments 
were prosecuted with diligence and success ? — that treaties highly 
advantageous to American interests were negotiated with leading 
nations in Europe and South America? — that the public revenue 
was greater than it had ever been before ? — that the resources of 
the country were made accessible by a liberal system of internal 
improvement? — that, nevertheless, there were surplus millions in 
the treasury? — that the administration nobly disdained to employ 
the executive patronage as a means of securing its continuance in 
power ? — All this availed nothing. ' Hurrah for Jackson ' carried the 
day. The Last of the Gentlemen of the Revolutionary school re- 
tired. The era of wire-pulling began. That deadly element was 
introduced into our political system which rendered it so exquisitely 
vicious, that thenceforth it worked to corruption by an irresistible 
necessity ! It is called Rotation in Office. It is embodied in the 
maxim, ' To the victors belong the spoils.' It has made the Avord 
office-liolder synonymous with the word meak. It has thronged the 
capital with greedy sycophants. It has made politics a game of 
cunning, with enough of chance in it to rendej* it interesting to the 
low'Srew that play. It has made the president a pawn with which 
to make the first move — a puppet to keep the people amused while 
their pockets are picked. It has excluded from the service of the 
State nearly every man of ability and worth, and enabled bloated 
and beastly demagogues, without a ray of talent, without a senti- 
ment of magnanimity, illiterate, vulgar, insensible to shame, to exert 
a 'power in this republic, which its greatest statesmen in their 
greatest days never wielded. 

In the loud contentions of the period, the reader can easily be- 
lieve that our argumentative apprentice took an intense interest. 
The village of East Poultney cast little more — if any more — than 
half a dozen votes for Jackson, but how much this result was owing 
\q the efforts of Horace Greeley cannot now be ascertained. All 



THE ANTI-MASON EXCITEMENT. 101 

agree that he contributed his full share to the general babble which 
the election of a President provokes. During the whole adminis- 
tration of Adams, the revision of the tariff with a view to the bet- 
ter protection of American manufactures was among the most 
prominent topics of public and private discussion. 

It was about the year 1827 that the Masonic excitement arose 
Military men tell us that the bravest regiments are subject to panic. 
Eegiments that bear upon their banners the most honorable distinc- 
tions, whose colors are tattered with the bullets of a hundred 
fights, will on a sudden falter in the charge, and fly, like a pack of 
cowards, from a danger which a pack of cowards might face with- 
out ceasing to be thought cowards. Similar to these causeless and 
irresistible panics of war are those frenzies of fear and fury mingled 
which sometimes come over the mind of a nation, and make it for 
a time incapable of reason and regardless of justice. Such seems 
to have been the nature of the anti-Masonic mania which raged in 
the JSTorthern States from the year 1827. 

A man named Morgan, a printer, had published, for gain, a book 
in which the harmless secrets of the Order of Free Masons, of which 
he was a member, were divulged. Public curiosity caused the book 
to have an immense sale. Soon after its publication, Morgan an- 
nounced another volume which was to reveal unimagined horrors ; 
but, before the book appeared, Morgan disappeared, and neither 
ever came to light. Now arose the question. What became of Mor- 
gan f and it rent the nation, for a time, into two imbittered and 
angry factions. " Morgan !" said the Free Masons, " that perjured 
traitor, died and was buried in the natural and ordinary fashion." 
"Morgan!" said the anti-Masons, "that martyred patriot, was drag- 
ged from his home by Masonic ruffians, taken in the dead of night 
to the shores of the Niagara river, murdered, and thrown into the 
rapids." It is impossible for any one to conceive the utter delirium 
into which the people in some parts of the country were thrown by 
the agitation of this subject. Books were written. Papers were 
established. Exhibitions were got up, in which the Masonic cere- 
monies were caricatured or imitated. Families were divided. Fa- 
thers disinherited their sons, and sons forsook their fathers. Elec- 
tions were influenced, not town and county elections merely, but 
State and national elections. There were Masonic candidates and 



102 , APPRENTICESHIP. 

anti-Masonic candidates in .every election in the Northern States 
for at least two years after Morgan vanished. Hundreds of Lodges 
bowed to the storm, sent in their charters to the central anthority, 
and voluntarily ceased to exist. There are families now, about the 
country, in Avhich Masonry is a forbidden topic, because its intro- 
duction would revive the old quarrel, and turn the peaceful tea-table 
into a scene of hot and interminable contention. There are still old 
ladies, male and female, about the country, who Avill tell you with 
grim gravity that, if you trace up Masonry, through all its Ordei*s, 
till you come to the grand, tip-top. Head Mason of the world, you 
will discover that that dread individual and the Chief of the Society 
of Jesuits are one and the same Person ! 

I have been tempted to use the word ridiculous in connection 
with this affair; and looking back upon it, at the distance of a 
quarter of a century, ridiculous seems a proper word to apply to it. 
But it did not seem ridiculous then. It had, at least, a serious side. 
It was believed among the anti-Masons that the Masons were bound 
to protect one another in doing injustice ; even the commission of 
treason and murder did not, it was said, exclude a man from the 
shelter of his Lodge. It was alleged that a Masonic jury dared not, 
or would not, condemn a prisoner who, after the fullest proof of his 
guilt had been obtained, made the Masonic sign of distress. It was 
asserted that a judge regarded the oath which made him a Free 
Mason as more sacred and more binding than that which admitted 
him to the bench. It is in vain, said the anti -Masons, for one of us 
to seek justice against a Mason, for a jury cannot be obtained with- 
out its share of Masonic members, and a court cannot be found 
without its Masonic judge. 

Our apprentice embraced the anti-Masonic side of this contro- 
versy, and embraced it warmly. It was natural that he should. 
It was inevitable that he should. And for the next two or three 
years he expended more breath in denouncing the Order of the 
Free-Masons, than upon any other subject — perhaps than aU other 
subjects put together. To this day secret societies are his special 
aversion. 

But we nmst hasten on. Horace had soon learned his trade. He 
became the best hand in the office, and rendered important assist- 
ance in editing the paper. Some numbers were almost entirely his 



INVENTORY OF HIS POSSESSIONS. 108 

work. But there was ill-luck about the little establishment. Several 
times, as we have seen, it changed proprietors, but none of them 
could make it prosper ; and, at length, in the month of June, 1830, 
the second month of the apprentice's fifth year, the ISTorthern 
Spectator was discontinued ; the printing- ofiice was broken up, and 
the apprentice, released from his engagement, became his own mas- 
ter, free to wander whithersoever he could pay his passage, and to 
work for whomsoever would employ him. 

His possessions at this crisis were— a knowledge of the art of 
printing, an extensive and very miscellaneous library in his mem- 
ory, a wardrobe that could be stuffed into a pocket, twenty dollars 
in cash, and — a sore leg. The article last named played too serious 
a part in the history of its proprietor, not to be mentioned in the 
inventory of his property. He had injured his leg a year before in 
stepping from a box, and it troubled him, more or less, for three 
years, sweUing occasionally to four times its natural size, and oblig- 
ing him to stand at his work, with the leg propped up in a most 
horizontal and uncomfortable position. It was a tantalizing feature 
of the case that he could walk without much difficulty, but stand- 
ing was torture. As a printer, he had no particular occasion to 
walk ; and by standing he was to gain his subsistence. 

Horace Greeley was no longer a Boy. His figure and the ex- 
pression of his countenance were still singularly youthful ; but he 
was at the beginning of his twentieth year, and he was henceforth 
to confront the world as a man. So far, his life had been, upon the 
whole, peaceful, happy and fortunate, and he had advanced towards 
his object without interruption, and with sufficient rapidity. His 
constitution, originally weak. Labor and Temperance had rendered 
capable of great endurance. His mind, originally apt and active, 
incessant reading had stored with much that is most valuable 
among the discoveri^, the thoughts, and the fancies of past genera- 
tions. In the conflicts of the Debating Society, the printing-office, 
and the tavern, he had exercised his powers, and tried the correct- 
ness of his opinions. If his knowledge was incomplete, if there 
were wide domains of knowledge, of which he had little more than 
heard, yet what he did know he knew well ; he had learned it, not 
as a task, but because he wanted to Tcnow it; it partook of the 
vitality of his own mind ; it was his own, and he could use it. 



104 Al'PRENTICE^IP. . 

If there had been a People's College, to which the new eman> 
cipated apprentice could have gone, and where, earning his subsist- 
ence by the exercise of his trade, he could have spent half of each 
day for the next two years of his life in the systematic study of 
Language, History and Science, under the guidance of men able to 
guide him aright, under the influence of women capable of attracting 
his regard, and worthy of it — it had been well. But there was not 
then, and there is not now, an institution that meets the want and 
the need of such as he. 

At any moment there are ten thousand young men and women 
in this country, strong, intelligent, and poor, who are about to go 
forth into the world ignorant, who would gladly go forth instruct- 
ed, if they could get knowledge, and earn it as they get it, by the 
labor of their hands. They are the sons and daughters of our farm- 
ers and mechanics. They are the very elite among the young 
people of the nation. There is talent, of all kinds and all degrees, 
among them — talent, that is the nation's richest possession — talent, 
that could bless and glorify the nation. Should there not be — can 
there nc>t be, somewhere in this broad land, a Univeesity-Town — 
where all trades could be carried on, all arts practiced, all knowl- 
edge accessible, to which those who have a desire to become ex- 
cellent in their calling, and those who have an aptitude for art, and 
those who have fallen in love with knowledge, could accomplish 
the wish of their hearts without losing their independence, without 
becoming paupers, or prisoners, or debtors ? Surely such a University 
for the People is not an impossibility. To found such an institu- 
tion, or assemblage of institutions — to find out the conditions upon 
which it could exist and prosper — were not an easy task. A Com- 
mittee could not do it, nor a 'Board,' nor a Legislature. It is 
an enterprise for One Man— a man of boundless, disinterestedness, 
of immense administrative and constructive •talent, fertile in ex- 
pedients, courageous, persevering, physically strong, and morally 
great — a man born for his work, and devoted to it ' wath a quiet, 
deep enthusiasm'. Give such a man the indispensable land, and 
twenty-five years, and the People's College would be a dream no 
more, but a triumphant and imitdble reality; and the founder 
thereof would have done a deed compared with which, either 



A people's college. 105 

for its diflSculty or for its results, such triumphs as those of Traf- 
algar and Waterloo would not be worthy of mention. 

There have been self-sustaining monasteries ! AVill there never 
be self-sustaining colleges? Is there anything like^ an inherent 
impossibility in a thousand men and women, in the fresh strength 
of youth, capable of a just subordination, working together, each 
for all and all for each, with the assistance of steam, machinery, 
and a thousand fertile acres — earning a subsistence by a few hours' 
labor per day, and securing, at least, half their time for the acqui- 
sition of the art, or the language, or the science which they prefer ? 
I think not. We are at present a nation of ignoramuses, our ig- 
norance rendered only the more conspicuous and misleading, by the 
faint intimations of knowledge which we acquire at our schools. 
Are we to remain such for ever ? 

But if Horace Greeley derived no help from schools and teachers, 
he received no harm from them. He finished his apprenticeship, 
an uncontaminated young man, with the means of independence 
at his finger-ends, ashamed of no honest employment, of no decent 
habitation, of no cleanly garb. "There are unhappy tim^," says 
Mr. Carlyle, " in the world's history, when he that is least educated 
will chiefly have to say that he is least perverted; and, with the 
multitude of false eye-glasses, convex, concave, green, or even 
yellow, has not lost the natural use of his eyes.'''' " How were it," 
he asks, " if we surmised, that for a man gifted with natural vigor, 
with a man's character to be developed in him, more especially if 
in the way of literature, as thinker and writer, it is actually, in 
these strange days, no special misfortune to be trained up among 
the uneducated classes, and not among the educated ; but rather, 
of the two misfortunes, the smaller?" And again, he observes, 
" The grand result of schooling is a mind with just vision to discern, 
with free force to do ; the grand schoolmaster is peactioe." 

5* 



CHAPTER YII. 

HE WANDERS. 

iorace leaves Poiiltney— His first Overcoat— Home to his Father's Log House— Ranges 
the country for work— The Sore Leg Cured— Gets Employment, but little Money- 
Astonishes the Draught-Players— Goes to Erie, Pa.— Interview with an Editor- 
Becomes a Journeyman in the Office— Description of Erie— The Lalie— His Generos- 
ity to his Father — His New Clothes — No more work at Erie— Starts for New 
York. 

" TVell, Horace, and where are you going now ?" asked the kind 
landlady of the tavern, as Horace, a few days after the closing of 
the printing-office, appeared on the piazza, equipped for the road — 
i. d., with his jacket on, and with his hundle and his stick in his 
hand. 

" I a# going," was the prompt and sprightly answer, " to Penn- 
sylvania, to see my father, and there I shall stay till my leg gets 
well." 

With these words, Horace laid down the bundle and the stick, 
and took a seat for the last time on that piazza, the scene of many 
a peaceful triumph, where, as Political Gazetteer, he had often given 
the information that he alone, of all the town, could give ; where, 
as political partisan, he had often brought an antagonist to extrem- 
ities ; where, as oddity, he had often fixed the gaze and twisted the 
neck of the passing pedler. 

And was there no demonstration of feeling at the departure of 
so distinguished a personage ? There was. But it did not take 
Xhe form of a silver dinner-service, nor of a gold tea ditto, nor of a 
piece of plate, nor even of a gold pen, nor yet of a series of reso- 
lutions. Whil© Horace sat on the piazza, talking with his old 
friends, who gathered around him, a meeting of two individuals 
was held in the corner of the bar-room. They were the landlord 
and one of his boarders ; and the subject of their deliberations 
were, an old brown overcoat belonging to the latter. The land- 
lord had the floor, and iiis speeck v,\as to the following purport :— 



HORACE LEAVES POULTNEY. 107 

" He felt like doing something for Horace before lie went. Horace 
was an entirely unspeakable person. He had lived a long time in 
the house ; he had never given any trouble, and we feel for him 
as for our own son. Now, there is that brown over-coat of yours. 
It 's cold on the canal, all the summer, in the mornings and even- 
ings. Horace is poor and his father is poor. You are owing me 
a little, as much as the old coat is worth, and what I say is, let us 
give the poor fellow the overcoat, and call our account squared." 
This feeling oration was received with every demonstration of ap- 
proval, and the proposition was carried into effect forthwith. The 
landlady gave him a pocket Bible. In a few minutes more, Horace 
rose, put his stick through his little red bundle, and both over his 
shoulder, took the overcoat upon his other arm, said ' Good-bye,' 
to his friends, promised to write as soon as he was settled again, 
and set off upon his long journey. His good friends of the tavern 
followed him with their eyes, until a turn of the road hid the bent 
and shambling figure from their sight, and then they turned away 
to praise him and to wish him well. Twenty-five years have 
passed ; and, to this hour, they do not tell the tale of his departure 
without a certain swelling of the heart, without a certain glistening 
of the softer pair of eyes. 

It was a fine, cool, breezy morning in the month of June, 1830. 
N'ature had assumed those robes of brilliant green which she wears 
only in June, and welcomed the wanderer forth witli that heavenly 
smile which plays upon her changeful countenance only when she 
is attired in her best. Deceptive smile ! The forests upon those 
hills of hilly Eutland, brimming with foliage, concealed their granite 
ribs, their chasms, their steeps, their precipices, their morasses, and 
the reptiles that lay coiled among them ; but they were there. So 
did the alluring aspect of the world hide from the wayfarer the 
struggle, the toil, the danger that await the man who goes out from 
his seclusion to confront the world alone — the world of whi^h he 
knows nothing except by hearsay, that cares nothing for him, and 
takes no note of his arrival. The present wayfarer was destined to 
be quite alone in his conflict with the world, and he was destined to 
wrestle with it for many years before it yielded him anything more 
than a show of submission. How prodigal of help is the Devil to 
bis scheming and guileful servants ! But the Powers Celestial— 



108 HE WANDER. " 

they love their choseu too wisely aud too well to diminish by one 
care the burthen that makes them strong, to lessen by one pang the 
agony that makes them good, to prevent one mistake of the folly 
that makes them wise. 

Light of heart and step, the traveler walked on. In the after- 
noon he reached Ann Harbor, fourteen miles from Poultney ; thence, 
partly on canal-boat and partly on foot, he went to Schenectady, 
and there took a ' line-boat' in the Erie Canal. A week of tedium 
in the slow line-boat — a walk of a hundred miles through the woods, 
and he had reached his father's log-house. He arrived late in the 
evening. The last ten miles of the journey he performed after 
dark, guided, when he could catch a glimpse of it through the 
dense foliage, by a star. The journey required at that time about 
twelve days : it is now done in eighteen hours. It cost Horace 
Greeley about seven dollars ; the present cost by railroad is eleven 
dollars ; distance, six hundred miles. 

He found his father and brother transformed into backwoodsmen. 
Their little log-cabiu stood in the midst of a narrow clearing, which 
was covered with blackened stumps, and smoked with burning tim- 
ber. Forests, dense and almost unbroken, heavily timbered, abound- 
ing in wolves and every other description of ' varmint,' extended a 
day's journey in every direction, and in some directions many days' 
journey. The country was then so wild and ' new,' that a hunter would 
sell a man a deer before it was shot ; and appointing the hour when, 
and the spot where, the buyer was to call for his game, would have 
it ready for him as punctually as though he had ordered it at Fulton 
market. The wolves were so bold, that their bowlings could be 
heard at the house as they roamed about in packs in search of the 
sheep ; and the solitary camper-out could hear them IjreatJie and see 
their eye-balls glare, as they prowled about his smoldermg fire. 
Mr. Greeley, who had brought from Vermont a fondness for rearing 
sheep, tried to continue that branch of rural occupation in the wil- 
derness ; but after the wolves, in spite of his utmost care and pre- 
caution, had killed a hundi-ed sheep for him, he gave up the at- 
tempt. But it was a level and a very fertile region — ' varmint' al- 
ways select a good ' location' — and it has since been subdued into a 
beautiful land of wheat and woods. 

Horace stayed at home for several weeks, assisting his father, 



• GETS EMPLOYMENT. 100 

fishing occasionally, and otherwise amusing himtjelf ; while his good 
mother assiduously nursed the sore leg. It healed too slowly for its 
impatient proprietor, who had learned ' to labor,' not ' to wait ;' 
and so, one morning, he walked over to Jamestown, a town twenty 
miles distant, where a newspaper was struggling to get published, 
and applied for work. Work he obtained. It was very freely 
given ; but at the end of the week the workman received a promise 
to pay, but no payment. He waited and worked four days longer, 
and discovering by that time that there was really no money to be 
had or hoped for in Jamestown, he walked home again, as poor as 
before. 

And now the damaged leg began to swell again prodigiously ; at 
one time it was as large below the knee as a demijohn. Cut off from 
other employment, Horace devoted all his attention to the unfortu- 
nate member, but without result. He heard about this time of a 
famous doctor who lived in that town of Pennsylvania which 
exults in the singular name of 'North-East,' distant twenty-five 
miles from his father's clearing. To him, as a last resort, though 
the family could ill afford the trifling expense, Horace went, and 
stayed with him a month. " You don't drink liquor," were the 
doctor's first words as he examined the sore, " if you did, you 'd 
have a bad leg of it." The patient thought he had a bad leg of it, 
without drinking liquor. The doctor's treatment was skillful, and 
finally successful. Among other remedies, he subjected the limb to 
the action of electricity, and from that day the cure began. The 
patient left North-East greatly relieved, and though the leg was 
weak and troublesome for many more months, yet it gradually re- 
covered, the wound subsiding at length into a long red scar. 

He wandered, next, in an easterly direction, in search of employ- 
ment, and found it in the village of Lodi, fifty miles off, in Oata- 
raugus county. New York. At Lodi, he seems to have cherished 
a hope of being able to remain awhile and earn a little money. 
He wrote to his friends in Poultney describing the paper on which 
he worked, " as a Jackson paper, a forlorn affair, else I would have 
sent you a few numbers." One of his letters written from Lodi to 
a friend in Vermont, contains a passage which may serve to show 
what was going on in the mind of the printer as he stood at the 
case setting up Jaoksonian paragraphs. " You are aware that an 



110 HE WANDERS. 

important election is close at hand in this State, and of course, a 
great deal of interest is felt in the result. The regular Jacksonians 
imagine that they will be able to elect Throop by 20,000 majority; 
but after having obtained all the information I can, I give it as my 
decided opinion, that if none of the candidates decline, we shall 
elect Francis Granger, governor. This county will give him 1000 
majority, and I estimate the vote in the State at 125,000. I need 
not inform you that such a result will be highly satisfactory to your 
humble servant, H. Greeley." It was a result, however, which he 
had not the satisfaction of contemplating. The confident and yet 
cautious manner of the passage quoted is amusing in a politician 
not twenty years of age. 

At Lodi, as at Jamestown, our roving journeyman found work 
much more abundant than money. Moreover, he was in the camp 
of the enemy ; and so at the end of his sixth week, he again took 
bundle and stick and marched homeward, with very little more 
money in his pocket than if he had spent his time in idleness. On his 
way home he fell in with an old Poultney friend who had recently 
lettled in the wilderness, and Horace arrived in time to assist at 
ihe ' warming ' of the new cabin, a duty which he performed in a 
w^ay that covered him with glory. 

In the course of the evening, a draught-board was introduced, 
and the stranger beat in swift succession half a dozen of the best 
players in the neighborhood. It happened that the place was rather 
noted for its skilful draught- players, and the game was played in- 
cessantly at private houses and at public. To be beaten in so scan- 
dalous a manner by a passing stranger, and he by no means an 
ornamental addition to an evening party, and young enough to be 
the son of some of the vanquished, nettled them not a little. They 
challenged the victor to another encounter at the tavern on the next 
evening. The challenge was accepted. The evening arrived, and 
there was a considerable gathering to witness and take part in the 
struggle — among the rest, a certain Joe Wilson who had been spe- 
cially sent for, and whom no one had ever beaten, since he came 
into the settlement. The great Joe was held in reserve. The party 
of the previous evening, Horace took in turn, and beat with ease. 
Other players tried to foil his ' Yankee tricks,' but were themselves 
foiled. The reserve was brought up. Joe "Wilson took his seat at 



GOES TO ERIE, PA. Ill 

the table. He played his deadliest, pausing long before he hazarded 
& move ; the company hanging over the board, hushed and anxious. 
They were not kept many minutes in suspense ; Joe was overthra>vn ; 
the unornamental stranger was the conqueror. Another game — 
the same result. Another and another and another ; but Joe lost 
every game. Joseph, however, was too good a player not to re- 
spect so potent an antagonist, and he and all the party behaved well 
under their discomfiture. The board was laid aside, and a lively 
conversation ensued, which was continued ' with unabated spirit to 
a late hour.' The next morning, the traveler went on his way, leav- 
ing behind him a most distinguished reputation as a draught-player 
and a politician. 

He remained at home a few days, and then set out again on his 
travels in search of some one who could pay him wages for his 
work. He took a ' bee line ' through the woods for the town of 
Erie, thirty miles off, on the shores of the great lake. He had ex- 
hausted the smaller towns ; Erie was the last possible move in that 
corner of the board ; and upon Erie he fixed his hopes. There were 
two printing offices, at that time, in the place. It was a town of 
five thousand inhabitants, and of extensive lake and inland trade. 

The gentleman still lives who saw the weary pedestrian enter 
Erie, attired in the homespun, abbreviated and stockingless style 
with which the reader is already acquainted. His old black, felt hat 
slouched down over his shoulders in the old fashion. The red cot- 
ton handkerchief still contained his wardrobe, and. it was carried 
on the same old stick. The country frequenters of Erie were then, 
and are still, particularly rustic in appearance ; but our hero seemed 
the very embodiment and incarnation of the rustic Principle ; and 
among the crowd of Pennsylvania farmers that thronged the streets, 
he swung along, pre-eminent and peculiar, a marked person, the 
observed of all observers. He, as was his wont, observed nobody, 
but went at once to the office of the Erie Gazette, a weekly paper, 
published then and still by Joseph M. Sterrilt. 

"I was not," Judge Sterritt is accustomed to relate, "I was not 
in the printing office when he arrived. I came in, soon after, and 
saw him sitting at the table reading the newspapers, and so absorbed 
in them that he paid no attention to my entrance. My first feeling 
was 01 e of astonishment, tliat a fellow so singularly ' green ' in hi? 



112 UE WANDERS. 

appearance should be reading^ and above all, reading so intently 
I looked at him for a few moments, and then, finding that he mado 
no movement towards acquainting me with his business, I took up 
my composing stick and went to work. He continued to read for 
twenty minutes, or more ; when he got up, and coming close to ray 
case, asked, in his peculiar, whining voice, 

" Do you want any help in the printing business ?" 

" Why," said I, running my eye involuntarily up and down the 
extraordinary figure, " did you ever work at the trade ?" 

" Yes," was the reply ; " I worked some at it in an office in Ver- 
mont, and I should be willing to work under instruction, if you 
could give me a job." 

Now Mr. Sterritt did want help in the printing business, and 
could have given him a job ; but, unluckily, he misinterpreted this 
modest reply. He at once concluded that the timid applicant was 
a runaway apprentice; and runaway apprentices are a class of their 
fellow-creatures to whom employers cherish a common and decided 
aversion. "Without communicating his suspicions, he merely said 
that he had no occasion for further assistance, and Horace, without 
a word, left the apartment. 

A similar reception and the same result awaited him at the other 
office ; and so the poor wanderer trudged home again, not in the 
best spirits. 

"Two or three weeks after this interview," continues Judge 
Sterritt — he «'s a judge, I saw him on the bench — "an acquaint- 
ance of mine, a farmer, called at the office, and inquired if I want- 
ed a journeyman. I did. He said a neighbor of his had a son 
who learned the printing business somewhere Down East, and 
wanted a place. ' What sort of a looking fellow is he ?' said I. 
He described him, and I knew at once that he was my supposed 
runaway apprentice. My friend, the farmer, gave him a high char- 
acter, however ; so I said, ' Send him along,' and a day or two 
after along he came." 

The terms on which Horace Greeley entered the office of the 
Erie Gazette were of his own naming, and therefore peculi^ir. He 
would do the best he could, he said, and Mr. Sterritt luight pay 
him what he (Mr. Sterritt) thought he had earned. Tie had only 
one request to make, and that was, that he should not be required 



THE TOWN OF ERIE. 113 

tc work at the press, unless tlie office was so niucli huiried that his 
services in that department could not he dispensed with. He had 
had a little difficulty with his leg, and press work rather hurt him 
than otherwise. The bargain included the condition that he was to 
board at Mr. Stcrrltt's house ; and when he went to dinner on the 
day of his arrival, a lady of the family expressed her opinion of 
him in the following terms : — " So, Mr. Sterritt, you 've hired that 
fellow to work for you, have you ? Well, you won't keep him three 
days." In three days she had changed her opinion ; and to this 
hour the good lady cannot bring herself to speak otherwise than 
kindly of him, though she is a stanch daughter of turbulent Erie, 
and ' must say, that certain articles which appeared in the Tribune 
during the War did really seem too bad from one who had been 
himself an Eriean.' But then, ' he gave no more trouble in the 
house than if he had 'nt been in it.' 

Erie, famous in the Last War but one, as the port whence Com- 
modore Perry sailed out to victory — Erie, famous in the last war 
of all, as the place where the men, except a traitorous thirteen, and 
the women, except tJieir faithful wives, all rose as One Man against 
the Railway Trains, saying, in the tone which is generally described 
as ' not to be misunderstood ' : " Thus far shalt thou go without 
stopping for refreshment, and no farther," and achieved as Break 
of Gauge men, the distinction accorded in another land to the 
Break o' Day boys — Erie, which boasts of nine thousand inhabit- 
ants, and aspires to become the Buffalo of Pennsylvania — Erie, 
which already has business enough to sustain many stores wherein 
not every article known to traffic is sold, and where a man cannot 
consequently buy coat, hat, boots, physic, plough, crackers, grind- 
stone and penknife, over the same counter — Erie, which has a 
Mayor and Aldermen, a dog-law, and an ordinance against shooting 
off guns in the street under a penalty of five dollars for each and 
every offence — ^Erie, for the truth cannot be longer dashed from 
utterance, is the shabbiest and most broken-down looking large 
town, /, the present writer, an individual not wholly untraveled, 
ever saw, in a free State of this Confederacy. 

The shores of the lake there are ' bluffy,' sixty feet or more above 
the water, and the land for many miles back is nearly a dead level, 
exceedingly fertile, and quite uninteresting. No, not quito. For 



114 _ HE WANDERS. 

much of tlie primeval forest remains, and the gigantic trees that 
were saDhngs when Cohimbus played in the streets of Genoa, 
tower akft, a hundred feet without a branch, with that exquisite 
daintiness of taper of which the eye never tires, which architecture 
has never equalled, which only Grecian architecture approached, 
and was beautiful because it approached it. The City of Erie is 
merely a square mile of this level land, close to the edge of the 
bluff, with a thousand houses built upon it, which are arranged on 
the plan of a corn-field — only, not more than a third of the houses 
have * come up.' The town, however, condenses to a focus around 
a piece of ground called ' The Park,' four acres in extent, surrounded 
with a low, broken board fence, that was white-washed a long 
time ago, and therefore now looks very forlorn and pig-pen-ny. 
The side- walks around ' The Park ' present an animated scene. The 
huge hotel of the place is there — a cross between the Astor House 
and a country tavern, having the magnitude of the former, the 
quality of the latter. There, too, is the old Court-House, — ^its 
uneven brick floor covered with the chips of a mortising machine, 
— its galleries up near the high ceiling, kept there by slender 
poles, — ^its vast cracked, rusty stove, sprawling all askew, and 
putting forth a system of stovepipes that wander long through 
space before they find the chimney. Justice is administered in 
that Court-house in a truly free and easy style ; and to hear the 
drowsy clerk, with his heels in the air, administer, 'twixt sleep 
and awake, the tremendous oath of Pennsylvania, to a brown, 
abashed farmer, with his right hand raised in a manner to set 
off his awkwardness to the best advantage, is worth a journey 
to Erie. Two sides of ' The Park ' are occupied by the principal 
stores, before which the country wagons stand, presenting a con- 
tinuous range of muddy wheels. The marble structure around 
the corner is not a Greek temple, though built in the style of 
one, and quite deserted enough to be a ruin — it is the Erie Cus- 
tom House, a fine example of governmental management, as it 
is as much too large for the business done in it as the Custom 
House of New York is too small. 

The Erie of the present yerr is, of course, not the Erie of 1831, 
when Horace Greeley walked its streets, with his eyes on the pave- 
ment and a bundle of excbirges in his pocket, ruminating on the 



THE LAKE. 115 

prospects of the next election, or thinking out a copy of verses to 
send' to his mother. It was a smaller place, then, with fewei brick 
blocks, more pigs in the street, and no custom-house in the Greek 
style. But it had one feature which has not changed. The Lake 
was there ! 

An island, seven miles long, but not two miles wide, once a part 
of the main land, lies opposite the town, at an apparent distance of 
half a mile, though in reality two miles and a half from the shore. 
This island, which approaches the. main land at either extremity, 
forms the harbor of Erie, and gives to that part of the lake the ef- 
fect of a river. Beyond, the Great Lake stretches away further 
than the eye can reach. 

A great lake in fine weather is like the ocean only in one particu- 
lar — you cannot see across it. The ocean asserts itself; it is demon- 
strative. It heaves, it flashes, it sparkles, it foams, it roars. On the 
stillest day, it does not quite go to sleep ; the tide steals up the white 
beach, and glides back again over the shells and pebbles musically, or 
it murmurs along the sides of black rocks, with a subdued though al- 
ways audible voice. The ocean is a living and life-giving thing, ' fair, 
and fresh, and ever free.' The lake, on a fine day, lies dead. No 
tide breaks upon its earthy shore. It is as blue as a blue ribbon, as 
blue as the sky ; and vessels come sailing out of heaven, and go sail- 
ing into heaven, and no eye can discern where the lake ends and 
heaven begins. It is as smooth as a mirror's face, and as dull as a 
mirror's back. Often a light mist gathers over it, and then the lake 
is gone from the prospect ; but for an occasional sail dimly descried, 
or a streak of black smoke left by a passing steamer, it would give 
absolutely no sign of its presence, though the spectator is standing 
a quarter of a mile from the shore. Oftener the mist gathers thick- 
ly along the horizon, and then, so perfect is the illusion, the stran- 
ger will swear he sees the opposite shore, not fifteen miles off. 
There is no excitement in looking upon a lake, and it has no effect 
upon the appetite or the complexion. Yet there is a quiet, languid 
beauty hovering over it, a beauty all its own, a charm that grows 
upon the mind the longer you linger upon the shore. The Castle 
of Indolence should have been placed upon the bank of Lake Erie, 
where its inmates could have lain on the grass and gazed down, 



116 HE WANDERS. 

through all the slow hours of the long summer day, upon the lazy, 
hazy, blue expanse. 

"When the wind blows, the lake wakes up ; and still it is not the 
ocean. The waves are discolored by the earthy bank upon v/hich 
they break with un-oceanlike monotony. They neither advance 
nor recede, nor roar, nor swell, A great lake, with all its charms, 
and they are many and great, is only an infinite pond. 

The people of Erie care as much for the lake as the people of 
Niagara care for the cataract, as much as people generally care for 
anything wonderful or anything beautiful which they can see by 
turning their heads. In other words, they care for it as the means 
by which lime, coal, and lumber may be transported to another and 
a better market. Kot one house is built along the shore, though the 
shore is high and level. Not a path has been worn by human feet 
above or below the bluff. Pigs, sheep, cows, and sweet-brier bushes 
occupy the unenclosed ground, which seems so made to be built 
upon that it is surprising the handsome houses of the town should 
have been built anywhere else. One could almost say, in a weak 
moment. Give me a cottage on the bluff, and I will live at Erie ! 

It was at Erie, probably, that Horace Greeley first saw the uni- 
form of the American navy. The United States and Great Britain 
are each permitted by treaty to keep one vessel of war in commis- 
sion on the Great Lakes. The American vessel usually lies in the 
harbor of Erie, and a few oflicers may be seen about the town. 
What the busy journeyman printer thought of those idle gentlemen, 
apparently the only quite useless, and certainly the best dressed, 
persons in the place, may be guessed. Perhaps, however, he passed 
them by, in his absent way, and saw them not. 

In a few days, the new comer was in high favor at the office of 
the Erie Gazette. He is remembered there as a remarkably correct 
and reliable compositor, though not as a rapid one, and his steady 
devotion to his work enabled him to accomplish more than faster 
workmen. He was soon placed by his employer on the footing of 
a regular journeyman, at the usual wages, twelve dollars a month 
and board. All the intervals of labor he spent in reading. As 
soon as the hour of cessation arrived, he would hurry off his apron, 
wash his hands, and lose himself in his book or his newspapers, 
often forgetting his dinner, and often forgetting whether he had 



NO MORE WORK AT ERIE. 117 

his dinner or not. More and more, he became absorbed in politics. 
It is said, by one who worked beside him at Erie, that he could tell 
the name, post-office address, and something of the history and 
political leanings, of every member of Congress ; and that he could 
give the particulars of evejry important election ^hat had occurred 
within his recollection, even, in some instances, to the county 
majorities. 

And thus, in earnest work and earnest reading, seven profitable 
and not unhappy months passed swiftly away. He never lost one 
day's work. On Sundays, he read, or walked along the shores of 
the lake, or sailed over to the Island. His better fortune made no 
change either in his habits or his appearance ; and his employer 
was surprised, that month after month passed, and yet his strange 
journeyman drew no money. Once, Mr. Sterritt ventured to 
rally him a little upon his persistence in wearing the hereditary 
homespun, saying, " Now, Horace, you have a good deal of money 
coming to you ; don't go about the town any longer in that out- 
landish rig. Let me give you an order on the store. Dress up a 
little, Horace." To which Horace replied, looking down at the ' out- 
landish rig,' as though he had never seen it before, " You see, Mr. 
Sterritt, my father is on a new place, and I want to help him all I 
can." However, a short time after, Horace did make a faint efibrt 
to dress up a little ; but the few articles which he bought were so 
extremely coarse and common, that it was a question in the office 
whether his appearance was improved by the change, or the 
contrary. 

At the end of the seventh month, the man whose sickness had 
made a temporary vacancy in the office of the Gazette, returned to 
his place, and there was, in consequence, no more work for Horace 
Greeley. Upon the settlement of his account, it appeared that he 
had drawn for his personal expenses during his residence at Erie, 
the sum of six dollars ! . Of the remainder of his wages, he took 
about fifteen dollars in money, and the rest in the form of a note ; 
and with all this wealth in his pocket, he walked once more to his 
father's house. This note the generous fellow gave to his father, 
reserving the money to carry on his own personal warfare with the 
world. 

And now, Horace was tired of dallying with fortune in coun- 



118 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. 

try printing offices. He said, he, thought it was time to do some- 
thing, and he formed the bold resolution of going straight to New 
York and seeking his fortune in the metropolis. After a few days of 
recreation at home, he tied up his bundle once more, put his money 
in his pocket, and plunged into the woods in the direction of the 
Erie Canal. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. 

The jouruey— a night on the tow-path— He reaches the city— Inventory of his property 
—Looks for aboarding-house— Finds one— Expends half his capital upon clothes 
—Searches for employment— Berated by David Hale as a runaway apprentice- 
Continues the search— Goes to church— Hears of a vacancy— Obtains work— The 
boss takes him for a ' dam fool,' but changes his opinion — Nicknamed ' the Ghost ' 
— Practical jokes — Horace metamorphosed — Dispute about commas — The shoe- 
maker's boarding-house — Grahd banquet on Sundays. 

He took the canal-boat at Buffalo and came as far as Lockport, 
whence he walked a few miles to Gaines, and stayed a day at the 
house of a friend whom he had known in Vermont. Next morn- 
ing he walked back accompanied by his friend to the canal, and 
both of them waited many hours for an eastward-bound boat to 
pass. Night came, but no boat, and the adventurer persuaded his 
friend to go home, and set out himself to walk on the tow-path to- 
wards Albion. It was a very dark night. He walked slowly on, 
hour after hour, looking anxiously behind him for the expected 
boat, looking more anxiously before him to discern the two fiery 
eyes of the boats bound to the west, in time to avoid being swept 
into the canal by the tow-line. Towards morning, a boat of the 
slower sort, a scow probably, overtook him ; he went on board, and 
tired with his long walk, lay down in the cabin to rest. Sleep was 
tardy in alighting upon his eye-lids, and he had the pleasure of 
hearing his merits and his costume fully and freely discussed 
by his fellow passengers. It was Monday morning. One passen- 
ger explained the coming on board of the stranger at so unusual an 



INVENTORV OF HIS PROPERTY. 119 

hour, by suggesting that he- had been courting all night. Sunday- 
evening in country places is sacred to love. His appearance was so 
exceedingly unlike that of a lover, that this sally created much 
amusement, in which the wakeful traveler shared. At Rochester 
he took a faster boat. "Wednesday night he reached Schenectady, 
where he left the canal and walked to Albany, as the canal between 
thoso two towns is much obstructed by locks. He reached Albany 
on Thursday morning, just in time to see the seven o'clock steam- 
boat move out into the stream. He, therefore, took passage in a 
tow-boat which started at ten o'clock on the same morning. At 
sunrise on Friday, the eighteenth of August, 1831, Horace Greeley 
landed at Whitehall, close to the Battery, in the city of IsTew York. 

New York was, and is, a city of adventurers. Few of our emi- 
nent citizens were born here. It is a common boast among New 
Yorkers, that this great merchant and that great millionaire came 
to the city a ragged boy, with only three and sixpence in his 
pocket ; and noio look at him ! In a list of the one hundred men 
who are esteemed to be the most ' successful ' among the citizens 
of New York, it is probable that seventy-five of the names would 
be those of men who began their career here in circumstances that 
gave no promise of future eminence. But among them all, it is 
questionable whether there was one who on his arrival had so lit- 
tle to help, so much to hinder him, as Horace Greeley. 

Of solid cash, his stock was ten dollars. His other property con- 
sisted of the clothes he wore, the clothes he carried m his small 
bundle, and the stick with which he carried it. The clothes he 
wore need not be described ; they were those which had already 
astonished the people of Erie. The clothes he carried were very 
few, and precisely similar in cut and quality to the garments which 
he exhibited to the public. On the violent supposition that his 
wardrobe could in any case have become a saleable commodity, we 
may compute that he was worth, on tliis Friday morning at sun- 
rise, ten dollars and seventy -five cents. He had no friend, no ac- 
quaintance here. There was not a human being upon whom he 
had any claim for help or advice. His appearance was all against 
him. He looked in his round jacket like an overgrown boy. No 
one was likely to observe the engaging beauty of his face, or the 
noble round of his brow under that overhanging hat, over that 



120 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. 

long and stooping bod}^ He was somewhat timorous in his inter- 
course with strangers. He would not intrude upon their attention ; 
he had not the faculty of pushing his way, and proclaiming his mer- 
its and his desires. To the arts by which men are conciliated, by 
which unwilling ears are forced to attend to an unwelcome tale, he 
was utterly a stranger. Moreover, he had neglected to bring with 
him any letters of recommendation, or any certificate of his skill 
as a printer. It had not occurred to him that anything of the kind 
was necessary, so unacquainted was he with the life of cities. 

His first employment was to find a boarding-house where he 
could live a long time on a small sum. Leaving the green Battery 
on his left hand, he strolled off into Broad-street, and at the corner 
of that street and "Wall discovered a house that in his eyes had the 
aspect of a cheap tavern. He entered the bar-room, and asked the 
price of board. 

" I guess we 're too high for j'ou," said the bar-keeper, after 
bestowing one glance upon the inquirer. 

" Well, how much a week do you charge ?" 

" Six dollars." 

" Yes, that 's more than I can afibrd," said Horace with a laugh 
at the enormous mistake he had made in inquiring at a house of 
such pretensions. 

He turned up Wall-street, and sauntered into Broadway. Seeing 
no house of entertainment that seemed at all suited to his circum- 
stances, he sought the water once more, and wandered along the 
wharves of the North River as far as Washington-market. Board- 
ing-houses of the cheapest kind, and drinking-houses of the lowest 
grade, the former frequented chiefly by emigrants, the latter by 
sailors, were numerous enough in that neighborhood. A house, 
which combined the low groggery and the cheap boarding-house 
in one small establishment, kept by an Irishman named M'Gorlick, 
chanced to be the one that first attracted the rover's attention. It 
looked so mean and squalid, that he was tempted to enter, and 
again inquire for what sum a man could buy a week's shelter and 
Bustenance. 

" Twenty shillings," was the landlord's reply. 

" Ah," said Horace, " that sounds more like it." 

Ho engaged to board with Mr. M'Gorlick on the instant, and 



SEAKCHES FOR EMPLOYMENT. 121 

proceeded soon to test the quality of his fare by taking breakfast 
in the bosom of his family. The cheapness of the entertainment 
was its best recommendation. 

After breakfast Horace performed an act which I believe he had 
never spontaneously performed before. He bought some clothes, 
with a view to render himself more presentable. They were of 
the commonest kind, and the garments were few, but the purchase 
absorbed nearly half his capital. Satisfied with his appearance, he 
now began the round of the printing-offices, going into every one 
he could find, and asking for employment — merely asking, and 
going away, without a word, as soon as he was refused. In the 
course of the morning, he found himself in the office of the Journal 
of Commerce, and he chanced to direct his inquiry, ' if they wanted 
a hand,' to the late David Hale, one of the proprietors of the paper. 
Mr. Hale took a survey of the person who had presumed to ad- 
dress him, and replied in substance as follows: — 

" My opinion is, young man, that you 're a runaway apprentice, 
and you 'd better go home to your master." 

Horace endeavored to explain his position and circumstances, 
but the impetuous Hale could be brought to no more gracious 
response than, " Be o& about your business, and don't bother us." 

Horace, more amused than indignant, retired, and pursued his 
way to the next office. All that day he walked the streets, climb- 
ed into upper stories, came down again, ascended other heights, 
descended, dived into basements, traversed passages, groped through 
labyrinths, ever asking the same question, ' Do you want a hand ?' 
and ever receiving the same reply, in various degrees of civility, 
'No.' He walked ten times as many miles as he needed, for he 
was not aware that nearly all the printing-offices in I^Tew York are 
in the same square mile. He went the entire length of many streets 
which any body could have told him did not contain one. 

He went home on Friday evening very tired and a little dis- 
couraged. 

Early on Saturday morning he resumed the search, and continued 
it with energy till the evening. But no one wanted a hand. Busi- 
ness seemed to be at a stand-still, or every office had its full comple- 
ment of men. On Saturday evening he was still more fatigued. 
He resolved to remain in the city a day or two longer, and then, if 

a 



122 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. 

still unsuccessful, to turn his face homeward, and inquire for work 
at the towns through which he passed. Though discouraged, he 
was not disheartened, and still less alarmed. 

The youthful reader should observe here what a sense of inde- 
pendence and what fearlessness dwell in the spirit of a man who has 
learned the art of living on the mere necessaries of life. If Horace 
Greeley had, after another day or two of trial, chosen to leave the 
city, he would have carried with him about four dollars ; and with 
that sum he could have walked leisurely and with an unanxious 
heart all the way back to his father's house, six hundred miles, 
inquiring for work at every town, and feeling himself to be a free 
and independent American citizen, travelling on his own honestly- 
earned means, undegraded by an obligation, the equal in social rank 
of the best man in the best house he passed. Blessed is the young 
man who can walk thirty miles a day, and dine contentedly on half 
a pound of crackers ! Give him four dollars and summer weather, 
and he can travel and revel like a prince incog, for forty days. 

On Sunday morning, our hero arose, refreshed and cheerful. He 
went to church twice, and spent a happy day. In the morning he 
induced a man who lived in the house to accompany him to a small 
Universalist church in Pitt street, near the D^-y Dock, not less than 
three miles distant from M'Gorlick's boarding-house. In the evening 
he found his way to a Unitarian church. Except on one occasion, 
he had never before this Sunday heard a sermon which accorded 
with his own religious opinions ; and the pleasure with which he 
heard the benignity of the Deity asserted and proved by able men, 
was one of the highest he had enjoyed. 

In the afternoon, as if in reward of the pious way in which he 
spent the Sunday, he heard news which gave him a faint hope of 
being able to remain in the city. An Irishman, a friend of the 
landlord, came in the course of the afternoon to pay his usual Sun- 
day visit, and became acquainted with Horace and his fruitless 
search for work. He was a shoemaker, I believe, but he lived in a 
house which was much frequented by journeymen printers. From 
them he had heard that hands were wanted at West's, No. 85 Chat' 
ham street, and he recommended his new acquaintance to make 
immediate application at that office. 

Accustomed to country hours, and eager to seize the cliance, 



HE HEARS OF A VACANCY. 123 

Horace was in Chatham street and on the steps of the designated 
nouse by half-past five on Monday morning. West's printing office 
"was in the second story, the ground floor being occupied by Mc- 
Elrath and Bangs as a bookstore. They were publishers, and West 
was their printer. Neither store nor office was yet opened, and 
Horace sat down on the steps to wait. 

Had Thomas McElrath, Esquire, happened to pass on an early 
walk to the Battery that morning, and seen our hero sitting on those 
steps, with his red bundle on his knees, Ms pale face supported on 
his hands, bis attitude expressive of dejection and anxiety, his attire 
extremely unornamental, it would not have occurred to Thomas Mc- 
Elrath, Esquire, as a probable event, that one day he would be the 
PAETNEE of that sorry figure, and proud of the connection ! Nor did 
Miss Reed, of Philadelphia, when she saw Benjamin Franklin pass 
her father's bouse, eating a large roll and carrying two others under 
his arms, see in that poor wanderer any likeness of her future hus- 
band, the husband that made her a proud and an immortal wife. 
The princes of the mind always remain incog, till they come to the 
throne, and, doubtless, the Coming Man, when he comes^ will appear 
in a strange disguise, and no man will know him. 

It seemed very long before any one came to work that morning 
at No. 85. The steps on which our friend was seated Avere in the 
narrow part of Chatham-street, the gorge through which at morn- 
ing and evening the swarthy tide of mechanics pours. By six 
o'clock the stream bas set strongly down-town-ward, and it gradu- 
ally swells to a torrent, bright with tin kettles. Thousands passed 
by, but no one stopped till nearly seven o'clock, when one of Mr. 
"West's journeymen arrived, and finding the door still locked, he sat 
down on the steps by the side of Horace Greeley. They fell into 
conversation, and Horace stated bis circumstances, something of his 
history, and his need of employment. Luckily this journeyman was 
a Yermonter, and a kind-hearted intelligent man. He looked upon 
Horace as a countryman, and was struck with the singular candor 
and artlessness with which he told his tale. " I saw," says he, " that 
he was an honest, good young man, and being a Yermonter myself, 
I determined to help him if I could." 

He did help him. The doors were opened, the men began to 
arrive ; Horace and his newly-found friend ascended to the offiefe, 



124 An.^IVAL IN NEW YORK. 

and soon after seven the work of the day began. It is hardly neces- 
sary to say that the appearance of Horace, as he sat in the office 
waiting for the coming of the foreman, excited unbounded astonish- 
ment, and brought upon his friend a variety of satirical observations. 
JSTothing daunted, however, on the arrival of the foreman he stated 
the case, and endeavored to interest him enough in Horace to give 
him a trial. It happened that the work for which a man was wanted 
in the office was the composition of a Polyglot Testament ; a kind 
of work which is extremely difficult and tedious. Several men had 
tried their hand at it, and, in a few days or a few hours, given it up. 
The foreman looked at Horace, and Horace looked at the foreman. 
Horace saw a handsome man (now known to the sporting public as 
Colonel. Porter, editor of the Spirit of the Times.) The foreman 
beheld a youth who could have gone on the stage, that minute, as 
Ezekiel Homespun without the alteration of a thread or a hair, and 
brought down the house by his ' getting up' alone. He no more 
believed that Ezekiel could set up a page of a Polyglot Testament 
than that he could construct a chronometer. However, partly to 
oblige Horace's friend, partly because he was unwilling to wound 
the feelings of the applicant by sending him abruptly away, he con- 
sented to let him try. " Fix up a case for him," said he, " and we '11 
eee if he can do anything." In a few minutes Horace was at 
work. 

The gentleman to whose intercession Horace Greeley owed his 
first employment in iN'ew-York is now known to all the dentists in 
the Union as the leading member of a firm which manufactures 
annually twelve hundred thousand artificial teeth. He has made 
a fortune, the reader will be glad to learn, and lives in a mansion up 
town. 

After Horace had been at work an hour or two, Mr. "West, tho 
' boss,' came into the office. What his feelings were when he saw 
his new man, may be inferred from a little conversation upon the 
Bubject which took place between him and the foreman. 

" Did you hire that dam fool ?" asked West with no small irri- 
tation. 

" Yes ; we must have hands, and he 's the best I could get," said 
the foreman, justifying h's conduct, though he was really ashamed 
of it. 



NICKNAMED " THE GHOST." 125 

"Well," said the master, "for God's sake pay Mm off to-niglit. 
and let him go about his business." 

Horace worked through the day with his usual intensity, and in 
perfect silence. At night he presented to the foreman, as the cus 
tom then was, the ' proof ' of his day's work "What astonishment 
was depicted in the good-looking countenance of that gentleman 
when he discovered that the proof before him was greater in quan- 
tity, and more correct than that of any other day's work which 
had yet been done on the Polyglot ! There was no thought of send- 
ing the new journeyman about his business now. He was an es- 
tablished man at once. Thenceforward, for several months, Horace 
worked regularly and hard on the Testament, earning about six dol- 
lars a week. 

He had got into good company. There were about twenty men 
and boys in the oflBce, altogether, of whom two have since been 
members of Congress, three influential editors, and several others 
have attained distinguished success in more private vocations. Most 
of them are still alive ; they remember vividly the coming among 
them of Horace Greeley, and are fond of describing his ways and 
works. The following paragraph the reader is requested to regard 
as the condensed statement of their several recollections. 

Horace worked with most remarkable devotion and intensity. 
His task was diflBcult, and he was paid by the ' piece.' In order, 
therefore, to earn tolerable wages, it was necessary for him to work 
harder and longer than any of his companions, and he did so. 
Often he was at his case before six in the morning; often he 
had not left it at nine in the evening ; always, he was the first to 
begin and the last to leave. In the summer, no man beside him- 
self worked before breakfast, or after tea. "While the young men 
and older apprentices were roaming the streets, seeking their 
pleasure, he, by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, was eking 
out a slender day's wages by setting up an extra column of the 
Polyglot Testament. 

For a day or two, the men of the oflSce eyed him askance, and 
winked at one another severely. The boys were more demonstra- 
tive, and one of the most mischievous among them named him 
The Ghost, in allusion to his long white hair, and the singular fair- 
ness of his complexion. Soon, however, the men who work»*^ near 



126 ARRIVAL IN NEW* YORK. 

Mm began to suspect that liis mind was better furnished than his 
person. Horace always had a way of talking profusely while at 
work, and that, too, without working Avith less assiduity. Conver- 
sations soon ^^rose about masonry, temperance, politics, religion; 
and the new journeyman rapidly argued his way to respectful con- 
sideration. His talk was ardent, animated, and positive. He was 
perfectly confident of his opinions, and maintained them with an 
assurance that in a youth of less understanding and less geniality 
would have been thought arrogance. His enthusiasm at this time, 
was Henry Clay ; his great subject, masonry. In a short time, to 
4uote the language of one his fellow-workmen, ' he was the lion of 
the shop.' Yet for all that, the men who admired him most would 
aave their joke, and during all the time that Horace remained in 
the office, it was the standing amusement to make nonsensical re- 
marks in order to draw from him one of his shrewd half-comic^ 
Scotch-Irish retorts. "And we always got it," says one. 

The boys of the office were overcome by a process similar to that 
which frustrated the youth of Pdultney. Four or five of them, 
who knew Horace's practice of returning to the office in the even- 
ing and working alone by candle-light, concluded that that would 
be an excellent time to play a few printing-office tricks upon him. 
They, accordingly, lay in ambush one evening, in the dark recesses 
of the shop, and awaited the appearance of the Ghost. He had no 
sooner lighted his candle and got at work, than a ball, made of 'old 
roller,' whizzed past his ear and knocked over his candle. He set 
it straight again and went on with his work. Another ball, and 
another, and another, and finally a volley. One hit his ' stick,' one 
scattered his type, another broke his bottle, and several struck his 
head. He bore it till the balls came so fast, that it was impossible 
for him to work, as all his time was wasted in repairing damages. 
At length, he turned round and said, without the slightest ill-humor, 
and in a supplicating tone, " Now, boys, don't. I want to work. 
Please, now, let me alone." The boys came out of their places of 
concealment into the light of the candle, and troubled him no 
nore. 

Thus, it appears, that every man can best defend himself with 
the weapon that nature has provided him — whether it be fists or 
forgiveness. Little Jane Eyre was of opinion, that when anybody 



THE OBLIGING MAN OF THE OFFICE. 127 

has struck another, he should himself bo struck; " very hard," says 
Jane, "so hard, that he will be afraid ever to strike anybody again." 
On the contrary, thought Horace Greeley, "when any ono has wan- 
tonly or unjustly struck another, he should be so severely forgiven, 
and made so thoroughly ashamed of himself, that he will ever after 
shrink from striking a wanton or an unjust blow. Sound maxims, 
loth; the first, for Jane, the second, for Horace. 

His good humor was, in truth, naturally imperturbable. He was 
soon the recognized obliging man of the oflSce ; the person relied 
upon always when help was needed — a most inconvenient kind of 
reputation. Among mechanics, money is generally abundant enough 
on Sundays and Mondays ; and they spend it freely on those days. 
Tuesday and "Wednesday, they are only in moderate circumstances. 
The last days of the week are days of pressure and borrowing, 
when men are in a better condition to be treated than to treat. 
Horace Greeley was the man who had money always ; he was as 
rich apparently on Saturday afternoon as on Sunday morning, and 
as willing to lend. In an old memorandum-book belonging to one 
of his companions in those days, still may be deciphered such en- 
tries as these : ' Borrowed of Horace Greeley, 2s.' ' Owe Horace 
Greeley, 9s. 6d.' ' Owe Horace Greeley, 2s. 6d, for a breastpin.* 
He never refused to lend his money. To himself, he allowed scarce- 
ly anything in the way of luxury or amusement ; unless, indeed, 
an occasional purchase of a small share in a lottery-ticket may be 
styled a luxury. 

Lotteries were lawful in those days, and Chatham-street was 
where lottery-offices most abounded. It was regarded as a per 
fectly respectable and legitimate business to keep a lottery-office, 
and a perfectly proper and moral action to buy a lottery-ticket. 
The business was conducted openly and fairly, and under official 
supervision ; not as it now is, by secret and irresponsible agents in 
all parts of the city and country. Whether less money, or more, 
is lost by lotteries now than formerly, is a question which, it is 
surprising, no journalist has determined. Whether they cause 
less or greater demoralization is a question which it were well 
for moralists to consider. 

Of the few incidents which occurred to relieve the monotony of 



128 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. 

the printing-office in Chatham-street, the one which is most glee- 
fully remembered is the following : — 

Horace was, of course, subjected to a constant fire of jocular 
observations upon his dress, and frequently to practical jokes sug- 
gested by its deficiencies and redundancies. Men stared at him in 
the streets, and boys called after him. Still, however, he clung to 
his linen roundabout, his short trowsers, his cotton shirt, and his 
dilapidated hat. Still he wore no stockings, and made his wrist- 
bands meet with twine. Tor all jokes upon the subject he had deaf 
ears; and if any one seriously remonstrated, he would not defend 
himself by explaining, that all the money he could spare was need- 
ed in the wilderness, six hundred miles away, whither he punctually 
sent it. September passed and October. It began to be cold, but 
our hero had been toughened by the winters of Vermont, and still 
he walked about in linen. One evening in iN'ovember, when busi- 
ness was urgent, and all the men worked till late in the evening, 
Horace, instead of returning immediately after tea, as his custom 
was, was absent from the office for two hours. Between eight and 
nine, when by chance all the men were gathered about the ' com- 
posing stone,' upon which a strong light was thrown, a strange 
figure entered the office, a tall gentleman, dressed in a complete suit 
of faded broadcloth, and a shabby, over-brushed beaver hat, from 
beneath which depended long and snowy locks. The garments 
were fashionably cut ; the coat was in the style of a swallow's 
tail ; the figure was precisely that of an old gentleman who had 
seen better days. It advanced from the darker parts of the office, 
and emerged slowly into the glare around the composing stone. 
The men looked inquiringly. The figure spread out its hands, 
looked down at its habiliments with an air of infinite complacency, 
and said, — 

" "Well, boys, and how do you like me now?" 

" Why, it 's Greeley," screamed one of the men. 

It was Greeley, metamorphosed into a decayed gentleman by a 
second-hand suit of black, bought of a Chatham-street Jew for five 
doUars. 

A shout arose, such as had never before been heard at staid and 
regular 85 Chatham-street. Cheer upon cheer was given, and men 



PRACTICAL JOKES. 121) 

laughed till the tears came, the venerable gentleman being as happy 
as the happiest. 

" Greeley, you must treat upon that suit, and no mistake," said 
one. 

" Oh, of course," said everybody else. 

" Come along, boys ; I '11 treat," was Horace's ready response. 

All the company repaired to the old grocery on the corner of 
Duane-street, and there each individual partook of the beverage 
that pleased him, the treater indulging in a glass of spruce beer. 
Posterity may as well know, and take warning from the fact, that 
this five-dollar suit was a failure. It had been worn thin, and had 
been washed in blackened water and ironed smooth. A week's 
wear brought out all its pristine shabbiness, and developed new. 

Our hero was not, perhaps, quite so indifferent to his personal ap- 
pearance as he seemed. One day, when Colonel Porter happened 
to remark that his hair had once been as white as Horace Greeley's, 
Horace said with great earnestness, " Was it ?" — as though he drew 
from that fact a hope that his own hair might darken as he grew 
older. And on another occasion, when he had just returned from a 
visit to New-Hampshire, he said, ""Well, I have been up in the 
country among my cousins ; they are all good-looking young men 
enough ; I do n't see why / should be such a curious-looking fel- 
low." 

One or two other incidents which occurred at West's are perhaps 
worth telling; for one well-authenticated fact, though apparently 
of trifling importance, throws more hght upon character than pages 
of general reminiscence. 

It was against the rules of the office for a compositor to enter the 
press-room, which adjoined the composing-room. Our hero, how- 
ever, went on one occasion to the forbidden apartment to speak to 
a friend who worked there upon a hand-press that was exceedingly 
hard to pull. 

"Greeley," said one of the men, "you're a pretty stout fellow, 
but you can 't pull back that lever." 

" Can 't I ?" said Horace ; " I can." 

" Try it, then," said the mischief-maker. 

The press was arranged in such a manner that the lever offered 
uo resistance whatever, and, consequently, when Horace seized it, 

6* 



130 



ARRIVAL IN NEWYORK. 



and collected all his strength for a tremendous effort, he fell back- 
wards on the floor with great violence, and brought away a large 
part of the press with him. There was a thundering noise, and all 
the house came running to see what was tlie matter. Horace got 
up, pale and trembling from the concussion. 

" Now, that was too bad," said he. 

He stood his ground, however, while the man who had played 
the trick gave the ' boss' a fictitious explanation of the mishap, with- 
out mentioning the name of the apparent offender. When all was 
quiet again, Horace went privately to the pressman and offered to 
fay his share of the damage done to the press ! 

"With Mr. "West, Horace had little intercourse, and yet they did 
on several occasions come into collision. Mr. West, like all other 
bosses and men, had a weakness ; it was commas. He loved com- 
mas, he was a stickler for commas, he was irritable on the subject 
of commas, he thought more of commas than any other point of 
prosody, and above all, he was of opinion that he knew more about 
commas than Horace Greeley. Horace had, on his part, no objec- 
tion to commas, but he loved them in moderation, and was deter- 
mined to keep them in their place. Debates ensued. The journey- 
man expounded the subject, and at length, after much argument, 
convinced his employer that a redundancy of commas was possible, 
and, in short, that he, the journeyman, knew how to preserve the 
balance of power between the various points, without the assist- 
ance or advice of any boss or man in Chatham, or any other street. 
There was, likewise, a certain professor whose book was printed in 
the oflSce, and who often came to read the proofs. It chanced that 
Horace set up a few pages of this book, and took the liberty of al- 
tering a few phrases that seemed to him inelegant or incorrect. The 
professor was indignant, and though he was not so ignorant as 
not to perceive that his language had been altered for the better, he 
thought it due to his dignity to apply approbrious epithets to the 
impertinent compositor. The compositor argued the matter, but 
did not appease the great man. 

Soon after obtaining work, our friend found a better boarding- 
house, at least a more convenient one. On the corner of Duane- 
Btreet and Chatham there was, at that time, a large building, oc- 
cupied below as a grocery and bar-room, the upper stories as a rae- 



xnE shoemaker's BOARDING-HOUSE. 131 

chanics' boarding-house. It accommodated about fifty boarders, 
most of whom were shoe-makers, who worked in their own rooms, 
or in shops at the top of the house, and paid, for room and board, 
two dollars and a half per week. This was the house to which 
Horace Greeley removed, a few days after his arrival in the city, 
and there he lived for more than two years. The reader of the 
Tribune may, perhaps^ remember, that its editor has frequently dis- 
played a particular acquaintance with the business of shoe-making, 
and drawn many illustrations of the desirableness and feasibility 
of association from the excessive labor and low wages of shoe- 
makers. It was at this house that he learned the mysteries of the 
craft. He was accustomed to go up into the shops, and sit among 
the men while waiting for dinner. It was here, too, that he obtain- 
ed that general acquaintance with the life and habits of city me- 
chanics, which has enabled him since to address them so wisely 
and so convincingly. He is remembered by those who lived with 
him there, only as a very quiet, thoughtful, studious young man, 
one who gave no trouble, never went out ' to spend the evening,' 
and read nearly every minute when he was not working or eating. 
The late Mr. Wilson, of the Brother Jonathan, who was his room- 
mate for some months, used to say, that often he went to bed leav- 
ing his companion absorbed in a book, and when he awoke in the 
morning, saw him exactly in the same position and attitude, as 
though he had not moved all night. He had not read all night, 
however, but had risen to his book with the dawn. Soon after 
sunrise, he went over the way to his work. 

Another of Mr. "Wilson's reminiscences is interesting. The 
reader is aware, perhaps, from experience, that people who pay only 
two dollars and a half per week for board and lodging are not pro- 
vided with all the luxuries of the season ; and that, not unfrequent- 
ly, a desire for something delicious steals over the souls of boarders, 
particularly on Sundays, between 12, M. and 1., P.M. The eating- 
house revolution had then just begun, and the institution of Dining 
Down Town was set up ; in fact, a bold man established a Sixpenny 
Dining Saloon in Beekman-street, which was the talk of the shops 
in the winter of 1831. On Sundays Horace and his friends, after 
their return from Mr. Sawyer's (Universahst) church in Orchard- 
street, were accustomed to repair to this establishment, and indulge 



i33 ARRIVAL IN NE^^ YORK. 

in a splendid repast at a cost of, at least, one shilling each, rising 
on some occasions to eighteen pence. Their talk at dinner was of 
the soul-banquet, the sermon, of which they had partaken in the 
morning, and it was a custom among them to ascertain who could 
repeat the substance of it most correctly. Horace attended that 
church regularly, in those days, and listened to the sermon with 
his head bent forward, his eyes upon the floor, his arms folded, and 
one leg swinging, quite in his old class attitude at the "Westhaven 
school. 

This, then, is the substance of what his companions remember 
of Horace Greeley's first few months in the metropolis. In a way 
so homely and so humble, New York's most distinguished citizen, 
the Country's most influential man, began his career. 

In his subsequent writings there are not many allusions of an au- 
tobiographical nature to this period. The following is, indeed, the 
only paragraph of the kind that seems worth quoting. It is valu- 
able as throwing light upon the Jiabit of Ms mind at this time : — 

"Fourteen years ago, -when the editor of the Tribune cam© to this city, 
there was published here a small daily paper entitled the ' Sentinel,' devoted 
to the cause of what was called by its own supporters ' the Working Men's 
Party,' and by its opponents ' the Fanny Wright Working Men.' Of that 
party we have little personal knowledge, but at the head of the paper, among 
several good and many objectionable avowals of principle, was borne the fol- 
lowing ; 

" ' Single Districts for the choice of each Senator and Member of Assembly.' 
" We gave this proposition some attention at the time, and came to the con- 
clusion that it was alike sound and important. It mattered little to us that it 
was accompanied and surrounded by others that we could not assent to, and 
was propounded by a party with which we had no acquaintance and little sym- 
pathy. We are accustomed to welcome truth, from whatever quarter it may 
approach us, and on whatever flag it may be inscribed. Subsequent experience 
has fully confirmed our original impression, and now we have little doubt that 
this principle, which was utterly slighted when presented under unpopular 
auspices, will be engrafted on our reformed Constitution without serious oppo- 
sition."— rnfiiwe, Dec, 1845. 



CHAPTER IX. 

FEOM OFFICE TO OFFICE. 

Leaves West's— Works on the ' Evening Post'— Story of Mr. Leggelt— ' Commercial 
Advertiser'—' Spii-it of the Times'— Specimen of his writing at this period— Natu- 
rally fond of the drama— Timothy Wiggins— Works for Mr. Redfleld— The first 
lift. 

HoEACE Geeelet was a journeyman printer in this city for four- 
teen months. Those months need not detain us long from the more 
eventful periods of his life. 

He worked for Mr. "West in Chatham street till about the first of 
November (1831). Then the business of that office fell off, and he 
was again a seeker for employment. He obtained a place in the 
office of the ' Evening Post,' whence, it is said^ he was soon dis- 
missed by the late Mr. Leggett, on the ground of his sorry appear- 
ance. The story current among printers is this : Mr. Leggett came 
into the printing-office for the purpose of speaking to the man whose 
place Horace Greeley had taken. 

" Where's Jones ?" asked Mr. Leggett. 

" He 's gone away," replied one of the men. 

" Who has taken his place, then ?" said the irritable editor. 

" There 's the man," said some one, pointing to Horace, who was 
' bobbing' at the case in his peculiar way. 

Mr. Leggett looked at ' the man,' and said to the foreman, " For 
God's sake discharge him, and let 's have ^QC^ni-looTcing men in the 
office, at least." 

Horace was accordingly — so goes the story — discharged at the 
end of the week. 

He worked, also, for a few days upon the ' Commercial Adver- 
tiser,' as a ' sub,' probably. Then, for two weeks and a half, upon 
a little paper called ' The Amulet,' a weekly journal of literatuie 
and art. The ' Amulet' was discontinued, and our hero had to wait 
ten years for his wages. 

His next step can be given in his own words. The following is 



134 FROM OFFICE TO OFFICE. 

the beginning of a paragraph in the New Yorker of March 2d, 
1839: 

" Seven years ago, on the first of January last — that being a holi- 
day, and the writer being then a stranger with few social greetings 
to exchange in New York — he inquired his way into the ill-furnish- 
ed, chilly, forlorn-looking attic printing-office in which "William T. 
Porter, in company with another very young man, who soon after 
abandoned the enterprise, had just issued the 'Spirit of the Times,' 
the first weekly journal devoted entirely to sporting intelligence 
ever attempted in this country. It was a moderate-sized sheet of 
indifferent paper, with an atrocious wood-cut for the head — about 
as uncomely a specimen of the ' fine arts' as our ' native talent' has 
produced. The paper was about in proportion ; for neither of its 
conductors had fairly attained his majority, and each was destitute 
of the experience so necessary in such an enterprise, and of the 
funds and extensive acquaintance which were still more necessary 
to its success. But one of them possessed a persevering spirit and 
an ardent enthusiasm for the pursuit to which he had devoted him- 
self." 

And, consequently, the ' Spirit of the Times' still exists and flour- 
ishes, under the proprietorship of its originator and founder. Colonel 
Porter. For this paper, our hero, during his short stay in the office, 
composed a multitude of articles and paragraphs, most of them 
short and unimportant. As a specimen of his style at this period, 
I copy from the ' Spirit' of May 5th, 1832, the following epistle, 
which was considered extremely funny in those innocent days : 

"Messrs. Editors : — Hear me you shall, pity me you must, while I pro- 
ceed to give a short account of the dread calamities which this vile habit of 
turning the whole city upside down, 'tother side out, and wrong side before, 
on the First of May, has brought dowrf on my devoted head. 

" You must know, that having resided but a few months in your city, I was 
totally ignorant of the existence of said custom. So, on the morning of the 
eventful, and to me disastrous day, I rose, according to immemorial usage, 
at the dying away of the last echo of the breakfast bell, and soon found my- 
self seated over my coffee, and my good landlady exercising her powers of 
volubility (no weak ones) apparently in my behalf; but so deep was the rev- 
erie in which my half-awakened brain was then engaged, that I did not catch 
a single idea from the whole of her discourse. I smiled and said, "Yes, 
ma'am," "certainly ma'am," at each pause; and having speedily dispatched 



NATURALLY FOND OF THE DRAMA. 135 

my breakfast, sallied immediately out, and proceeded to attend to the busi- 
ness which engrossed my mind. Dinner-time came, but no time for dinner; 
and it was late before I was at liberty to wend my way, over wheel-barrows, 
barrels, and all manner of obstructions, towards my boarding-house. All here 
was still ; but by the help of my night-keys, I soon introduced myself to my 
chamber, dreaming of nothing but sweet repose ; when, horrible to relate ! 
my ears were instantaneously saluted by a most piercing female shriek, pro- 
ceeding exactly from my own bed, or at least from the place where it should 
have been ; and scarcely had sufficient time elapsed for my hair to bristle on 
my head, before the shriek was answered by the loud vociferations of a fero- 
cious mastiff in the kitchen beneath, and re-echoed by the outcries of half a 
dozen inmates of the house, and these again succeeded by the rattle of the 
watchman ; and the next moment, there was a round dozen of them (besides 
the dog) at my throat, and commanding me to tell them instantly what the 
devil all this meant. 

'* You do well to ask that," said I, as soon as I could speak, " after falling 
upon me in this fashion in my own chamber." 

" take him off," said the one who assumed to be the master of the 
house ; " perhaps he 's not a thief after all ; but, being too tipsy for starlight, 
he has made a mistake in trying to find his lodgings," — and in spite of all 
my remonstrances, I was forthwith marched off to the watch-house, to pass 
the remainder of the night. In the morning, I narrowly escaped commitment 
on the charge of ' burglary with intent to steal (I verily believe it would have 
gone hard with me if the witnesses could have been got there at that unseason- 
able hour), and I was finally discharged with a solemn admonition to guard 
for the future against intoxication (think of that, sir, for a member of the 
Cold Water Society !) 

" I spent the next day in unraveling the mystery ; and found that my land- 
lord had removed his goods and chattels to another part of the city, on the 
established day, supposing me to be previously acquainted and satisfied with 
his intention of so doing; and another family had immediately taken his 
place ; of which changes, my absence of mind and absence from dinner had 
kept me ignorant ; and thus had I been led blindfold into a ' Comedy ' (or 
rather tragedy) of Errors. Your unfortunate, 

Timothy "Wiggins. 

His connection with the oflBco of a sporting paper procured him 
occasionally an order for admission to a theatre, which he used. 
He appeared to have had a natural liking for the drama ; all Intel 
ligent persons have when they are young ; and one of his compan- 
ions of that day remembers well the intense interest with which he 
once witnessed the performance of Richard HI., at the old Chat- 



136 FROM OFFICE TO* OFFICE. 

ham theati'e. At the close of the play, he said there was another 
of Shakespeare's tragedies which he had long wished to see, and 
that was Hamlet. 

Soon after writing his letter, the luckless Wiggins, tempted by 
the prospect of better wages, left the Spirit of the Times, and went 
back to "West's, and worked for some weeks on Prof. Bush's Notes 
on Genesis, 'the worst manuscript ever seen in a printing-office.' 
That finished, he returned to the Spirit of the Times, and remained 
till October, when he went to visit his relatives in New Hampshire. 
He reached his uncle's farm in Londonderry in the apple-gathering 
season, and going at once to the orchard found hie cousins engaged 
in that pleasing exercise. Horace jumped over thd fence, saluted 
them in the hearty and nnornamental Scotch-Irish style, sprang in- 
to a tree, and assisted them till their task for the day was done, and 
then all the party went frolicking into the woods on a grape-hunt. 
Horace was a welcome guest. He was full of fun in those days, 
and kept the boys roaring with his stories, or agape with descrip 
tions of city scenes. 

Back to the city again early in November, in time and on pur- 
pose to vote at the fall elections. 

He went to work, soon after, for Mr. J. S. Eedfield, now an emi- 
nent publisher of this city, then a stereotyper. Mr. Eedfield favors 
me with the following note of his connection with Horace Greeley : 
— " My recollections of Mr. Greeley extend from about the time he 
first came to the city to work as a compositor. I was carrying on 
the stereotyping business in William street, and having occasion one 
day for more compositors, one of the hands brought in Greeley, re- 
marking " sotto voce " as he introduced him, that he was a " boy- 
ish and rather odd looking genius," (to which remark I had no diffi- 
culty in assenting,) " but he had understood that he was a good 
workman." Being much in want of help at the time, Greeley was 
set to work, and I was not a little surprised to find on Saturday 
night, that his bills were much larger than those of any other com- 
positor in the office, and oftentimes nearly double those at work by 
the side of him on the same work. He would accomplish this, 
too, and talTc all the time ! The same untiring industry, and the 
lame fearlessness and independence, which have characterized his 



THE FIRST PENNY PAPER. 137 

course as Editor of the New York Tribune, were the distinguishing 
features of his character as a journeyman." 

He remained in the office of Mr. Redfield till late in December, 
when the circumstance occurred which gave him his first lift in 
the world. There is a tide, it is said, in the affairs of every man, 
once in his life, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. 

Horace Greeley's First Lift happened to take place in connection 
with an event of great, world-wide and lasting consequence ; yet 
one which has never been narrated to the pubhc. It shall, there- 
fore, have in this work a short chapter to itself. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE FIEST PENNY PAPER — ^AND WHO THOUGHT OF IT. 

Importance of the cheap daily press— The originator of the idea— History of the idea 
—Dr. Sheppard's Chatham-street cogitations— The Idea is conceived— It is born- 
Interview with Horace Greeley— The Doctor thinks he is ' no common boy'— The 
schemer baffled— Daily papers twenty-five years ago— Dr. Sheppard comes to a 
resolution— The firm of Greeley and Story— The Morning Post appears— And fails 
—The sphere of the cheap press— Fanny Fern and the pea-nut merchant. 

When the Historian of the United States shall have completed 
the work that has occupied so many busy and anxious years, 
and, in the tranquil solitude of his study, he reviews the long series 
of events which he has narrated, the question may arise in his 
mind, — Which of the events that occurred during the first seventy 
years of the Eepublic is likely to exert the greatest and most last- 
ing influence upon its future history ? Surely, he will not pause 
long for a reply. For, there is one event, which stands out so 
prominently beyond and above all others, the consequences of which, 
to this country and all other countries, must be so immense, and, 
finally, so beneficial, that no other can be seriously placed in com- 
petition with it. It was the establishment of the first penny daily 
paper in the city of New York in the year 1833. Its results, in this 
country, have already been wonderful indeed, and it is destined to 



138 THE FIRST PENNf PAPER. 

play a great part in the history of every civilized nation, and in 
that of every nation yet to be civihzed. 

Not that Editors are, in all cases, or in most, the wisest of men ; 
not that editorial writing has a greater value than hasty composition 
in general. Editors are a useful, a laborious, a generous, an honor- 
able class of men and women, and their writings have their due 
effect. But, that part of the newspaper which interests, awakens, 
moves, warns, inspires, instructs and educates all classes and con- 
ditions of people, the wise and the unwise, the illiterate and the 
learned, is the News ! And the News, the same news, at nearly the 
same instant of time, is communicated to all the people of this 
fair and vast domain which we inherit, by the instrumentality 
of the Cheap Press, aided by its allies the Rail and the Wire. 

A catastrophe happens to-day in New York. New Orleans 
shudders to-morrow at the recital ; and the Nation shudders before 
the week ends. A ' Great Word,' uttered on any stump in the 
land, soon illuminates a million minds. A bad deed is perpetrated, 
and the shock of disgust flies with electric rapidity from city to 
city, from State to State — from the heart that records it to every 
heart that beats. A gallant deed or a generous one is done, or a 
fruitful idea is suggested, and it falls, like good seed which the 
wind scatters, over all the land at once. Leave the city on a 
day when some stirring news is rife, travel as far and as fast as 
you may, rest not by day nor night ; you cannot easily get where 
that News is not, where it is not the theme of general thought and 
talk, where it is not doiug its part in informing, or, at least, exciting 
the public mind. Abandon the great lines of travel, go rocking in 
a stage over corduroy roads, through the wilderness, to the newest 
of new villages, a cluster of log-houses, in a field of blackened 
stumps, and even there you must be prompt with your news, or it 
will have flown out from a bundle of newspapers under the driver's 
seat, and fallen in flakes all over the settlement. 

The Cheap Press — its importance cannot be estimated ! It puts 
every mind in du-ect communication with the greatest minds, which 
all, in one way or another, speak through its columns. It brings the 
Course of Events to bear on the progress of every individual. It is 
the great leveller, elevator and democraticizer. It makes this huge 
Commonwealth, else so heterogeneous and disunited, think with one 



THE ORIGINATOR OP THE IDEA. 139^ 

mind, feel with one heart, and talk with one tongue. Dissolve the 
Union into a hundred petty States, and the Press will still keep us, 
in heart and soul and habit, One Pedple. 

Pardon this slight digression, dear reader. Pardon it, because 
the beginnings of the greatest things are, in appearance, so insig 
nificant, that unless we look at them in the hght of their conse 
quences, it is impossible to take an interest in them. 

There are not, I presume, twenty-five persons alive, who know 
in whose head it was, that the idea of a cheap daily paper origin- 
ated. N"or has the proprietor of that head ever derived from his 
idea, which has enriched so many others, the smallest pecuniary 
advantage. He walks these streets, this day, an unknown man, and 
poor. His name — the reader may forget it. History will not — is. 
Horatio David Sheppaed. The story of his idea, amply confirmed 
in every particular by living and unimpeachable witnesses, is the 
following : 

About the year 1830, Mr. Sheppard, recently come of age and 
into the possession of fifteen hundred dollars, moved from his native 
New Jersey to New York, and entered the Eldridge Street Medical 
School as a student of medicine. He was ambitious and full of 
ideas. Of course, therefore, his fifteen hundred dollars 'burned in his 
vest pocket — (where he actually used to carry it, until a fellow stu- 
dent almost compelled him to deposit it in a place of safety). He 
took to dabbling in newspapers and periodicals, a method of getting 
rid of superfluous cash, which is as expeditious as it is fascinating. 
He soon had an interest in a medical magazine, and soon after, a 
share in a weekly paper. By the time he had completed his medi- 
cal studies, he had gained some insight iuto the nature of the news- 
paper business, and lost the greater part of his money. 

People who live in Eldridge street, when they have occasion to 
go ' down town,' must necessarily pass through Chatham street, a 
thoroughfare which is noted, among many other things, for the ex- 
traordinary number of articles which are sold in it for a ' penny a 
piece.' Apple-stalls, peanut-stalls, stalls for the sale of oranges, 
melons, pine-apples, cocoanuts, chestnuts, candy, shoe-laces, cakes, 
pocket-combs, ice-cream, suspenders, lemonade, and oysters, line 
the sidewalk. In Chatham street, those small trades are carried on, 
on a scale of magnitude, with a loudness of vociferation, and a 



140 THE FIRST PENNY PAPER. 

flare of lamp-light, unknown to any other part of the town. Along 
Chatham street, our medical student ofttimes took his way, musing 
on the instability of fifteen hundred dollars, and observing, possibly 
envying, the noisy merchants of the stalls. He was struck with 
the rapidity with which they sold their penny ware. A small boy 
would sell half a dozen penny cakes in the course of a minute. 
The dif erence between a cent, and no money, did not seem to be 
apprec'.ated by the people. If a person saw something, wanted it, 
knew the price to be only a cent, he was almost as certain to buy 
it as though it were ofi'ered him for nothing. Now, thought he, to 
make a fortune, one has nothing more to do than to produce a 
tempting article which can be sold profitably for a cent, place it 
wliere everybody can see it, and buy it, without stopping — and lo I 
the thing is done ! If it were only jpossible to produce a small, spicy 
oaily paper for a cent, and get boys to sell it about the streets, how 
it would sell ! How many pennies that now go for cakes and pea- 
nuts would be spent for news and paragraphs ! 

The idea was born— the twin ideas of the penny paper and the 
newsboy. But, like the young of the kangaroo, they crawled into 
the mental pouch of the teeming originator, and nestled there for 
months, before they were fully formed and strong enough to con- 
front the world. 

Perhaps it is possible, continued the musing man of medicine, on 
a subsequent walk in Chatham street. He went to a paper ware- 
bouse, and made inquiries touching the price of the cheaper kinds 
of printing paper. He figured up the cost of composition. He 
computed office expenses and editorial salaries. He estimated the 
probable circulation of a penny paper, and the probable income to 
be derived from advertising. Surely, he could sell four or five 
thousand a day ! There^ for instance, is a group of people ; suppose 
a boy were at this moment to go up to them with an armful of pa- 
pers, ' only one cent,' I am positive, thought the sanguine projector, 
that six of the nine would buy a copy ! His conclusion was, that 
he could produce a newspaper about twice the size of an average 
sheet of letter-paper, half paragraphs and half advertisements, and 
sell it at a cent per copy, with an ample profit to himself. He was 
iure of it ! He had tried all his arithmetic upon the project, and 
the figures gave the same result always. The twins leaper' from 



DAILY PAPERS TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. 141 

the pouch, and taking their progenitor by the throat, led him a fine 
dance before he could shake them off. For the present, they pos- 
sessed him wholly. 

As most of his little inheritance had vanished, it was necessarji 
for him to interest some one in the scheme who had either capital 
or a printing office. The Spirit of the Times was then in its infan- 
cy. To the office of that paper, where Horace Greeley was then a 
journeyman, Mr. Sheppard first directed his steps, and there he 
first unfolded his plans and exhibited his calculations. Mr. Greeley 
was not present on his first entrance. He came in soon after, and 
began telling in high glee a story he had picked up of old Isaac Hill, 
who used to read his speeches in the House, and one day brought the 
wrong speech, and got upon his legs, and half way into a swelling ex- 
ordium before he discovered his mistake. The narrator told his sto- 
ry extremely well, taking off the embarrassment of the old gentleman 
as he gradually came to the knowledge of his misfortune, to the life. 
The company were highly amused, and Mr. Sheppard said to him- 
self, " That 's no common 5oy." Perhaps it was an unfortunate mo • 
ment to introduce a bold and novel idea ; but it is certain that every 
individual present, from the editor to the devil, regarded the notion 
of a penny paper as one of extreme absurdity, — foolish, ridiculous, 
frivolous! They took it as a joke, and the schemer took his 
leave. 

Nor is it at all surprising that they should have regarded ic in 
that light. A daily newspaper in those days was a solemn thing. 
People in moderate circumstances seldom saw, never bought one. 
The price was ten dollars a years. Out the present Journal of Com- 
merce in halves, fold it, fancy on its second page half a column of 
serious editorial, a column of news, half a column of business and 
shipping inteUigence, and the rest of the ample sheet covered with 
advertisements, and you have before your mind's eye the New York 
daily paper of twenty-five years ago. It was not a thing for the 
people ; it appertained to the counting-house ; it was taken by the 
wholesale dealer; it was cumbrous, heavy, solemn. The idea of 
making it an article to be cried about the streets, to be sold for a 
cent, to be bought by workingmen and boys, to come into competi- 
tion with cakes and apples, must have seemed to the respectable 
New Yorkers of 1831, unspeakably absurd. When the respectable 






142 THE FIRST PENNY PAPER. 

New Yorker first saw a penny paper, he gazed at it (I saw him) 
with a feeling similar to that with which an ill-natured man may 
be supposed to regard General Tom Thumb, a feeling of mingled 
curiosity and contempt ; he put the ridiculous little thing into his 
waistcoat pocket to carry home for the amusement of his family ; 
and he wondered what nonsense would bo perpetrated next. 

Dr. Sheppard — he had now taken his degree — was not disheart- 
ened by the merry reception of his idea at the office of the Spirit of the 
Times. He went to other offices — to nearly every other office ! For 
eighteen months it was his custom, whenever opportunity offered, 
to expound his project to printers and editors, and, in fact, to any 
one who would listen to him long enough. Re could not convince 
one man of the feasibility of his scheme^ — not one ! A few people 
thought it a good idea for the instruction of the milHon, and recom- 
mended him to get some society to take hold of it. But not a 
human being could be brought to believe that it would pay as a 
business, and only a few of the more polite and complaisant printers 
could be induced to consider the subject in a serious light at all. 

Reader, possessed with an Idea, reader, ' in a minority of one,* 
take courage from the fact. 

Despairing of getting the assistance he required. Dr. Sheppard 
resolved, at length, to make a desperate effort to start the paper 
himself. His means were fifty dollars in cash and a promise of 
credit for two hundred dollars' worth of paper. Among his 
printer friends was Mr. Francis Story, the foreman of the Spirit 
of the Times office, who, about that time, was watching for 
an opportunity to get into business on his own account. To him 
Dr. Sheppard announced his intention, and proposed that he should 
establish an office and print the forthcoming paper, offering to pay 
the bill for composition every Saturday. Mr. Story hesitated ; but, 
on obtaining from Mr. Sylvester a promise of the printing of his 
BanTc Note Reporter^ he embraced Dr. Sheppard's proposal, and 
offered Horace Greeley, for whom he had long entertained a warm 
friendship and a great admiration, an equal share in the enterprise. 
Horace was not favorably impressed with Dr. Sheppard's scheme. 
In the first place, he had no great faith in the practical ability of 
that gentleman ; and, secondly, he was of opinion that the smallest 
price for which a daily paper could be profitabiy sold was two cents. 



THE FIRM OF GREELEY AND STORY. 143 

His arguments on the latter point did not convince the ardent doc- 
tor ; but, with the hope of overcoming his scruples and enhsting 
his co-operation, he consented to give up his darling idea, and lix 
the price of his paper at two cents. Horace Greeley agreed, at 
length, to try his fortune as a master printer, and in December, the 
firm of Greeley and Story was formed. 

Now, experience has since proved that two cents is the best price 
for a cheap paper. But the point, the charm, the impudence of Dr. 
Sheppard's project all lay in those magical words, ' Price One 
Cent,' which his paper was to have borne on its heading — but did 
not. And the capital to be invested in the enterprise was so ludi- 
crously inadequate, that it was necessary for the paper to pay at once, 
or cease to appear. Horace Greeley's advice, therefore, though good 
as a general principle, was not applicable to the case in hand. Not 
that the proposed paper would, or could, have succeeded upon any 
terms. Its failure was inevitable. Dr. Sheppard is one of those 
projectors who have the faculty of suggesting the most valuable and 
fruitful ideas, without possessing, in any degree, the qualities need- 
ful for their realization. 

The united capital of the two printers was about one hundred and 
fifty dollars. They were both, however, highly respected in the print- 
ing world, and both had friends among those whose operations keep 
that world in motion. They hired part of a small office at No. 54 
Liberty street. Horace Greeley's candid story prevailed with Mr. 
George Bruce, the great type founder, so far, that he gave the new 
firm credit for a small quantity of type — an act of trust and kindness 
which secured him one of the best customers he h-as ever had. (To 
this day the type of the Tribune is supphed by Mr. Bruce.) Before 
the new year dawned, Greeley and Story were ready to execute 
every job of printing which was not too extensive or intricate, on 
favorable terms, and with the utmost punctuality and dispatch. 

On the morning of January 1st, 1833, the Morning Post, and a 
snow-storm of almost unexampled fury, came upon the town together. 
The snow was a wet blanket upon the hopes of newsboys and car- 
riers, and qaite deadened the noise of the new paper, filling up 
areas, and burying the tiny sheet at the doors of its few subscribers. 
For several days the streets were obstructed with snow. It was 
very cold. There were few people in the streets, and those few 



144 



THE FIRST PENNY PAPER. 



were not easily tempted to stop and fumble in their pockets for two 
cents. The newsboys were soon discouraged, and were fain to run 
shivering home. Dr. Sheppard was wholly unacquainted with the 
details of editorship, and most of the labor of getting up the num- 
bers fell upon Mr. Greeley, and they were produced under every 
conceivable disadvantage. Yet, with all these misfortunes and 
drawbacks, several hundred copies were daily sold, and Dr. Shep- 
pard was able to pay all the expenses of the first week. On the 
second Saturday, however, he paid his printers half in money and 
half in promises. On the third day of the third week, the faith 
and the patience of Messrs. Greeley and Story gave out, and the 
' Morning Post' ceased to exist. 

The last two days of its short life it was sold for a cent, and the 
readiness with which it was purchased convinced Dr. Sheppard, 
but him alone, that if it had been started at that price, it would not 
have been a failure. His money and his credit were both gone, 
and the error could not be retrieved. He could not even pay his 
printers the residue of their account, and he had, in consequence, 
to endure some emphatic observations from Mr. Story on the mad- 
ness and presumption of his scheme. " Did n't I tell you so ?" said 
the other printers. " Everybody," says Dr. Sheppard, " abused me, 
except Horace Greeley. He spoke very kindly, and told me not to 
mind what Story said." The doctor, thenceforth, washed his 
hands of printers' ink, and entered upon the practice of his pro- 
fession. 

Nine months after, the Sun appeared, a penny paper, a dingy 
sheet a little larger than a sheet of letter paper. Its success demon- 
strated the correctness of Dr. Sheppard's calculations, and justified 
the enthusiasm with which he had pursued his Idea. The office 
from which the Sun was issued was one of the last which Dr. 
Sheppard had visited for the purpose of enlisting co-operation. 
Neither of the proprietors was present, but the ardent schemer ex- 
pounded his plans to a journeyman, and thus planted the seed which, 
in September, produced fruit in the form of the Sun, which ' shines 
for all.' 

This morning, the cheap daily press of this city has issued a hun- 
dred and fifty thousand sheets, the best of which contain a history 
of the world for one day, so completely given, so intelligently com 



FANNY FERN AND *HE PEA-NUT MERCHANT. 145 

mented upoD, as to place the New York Press at the head of the 
journalism of the world. The Cheap Press, be it observed, had, 
first of all, to create itself^ and, secondly, to create its Public. The 
papers of the old school have gone on their way prospering. They 
are read by the class that read them formerly. But — mark that 
long line of hackmen, each seated on his box waiting for a customer, 
and each reading his morning paper ! Observe the paper that is 
thrust into the pocket of the omnibus driver. Look into shops and 
factories at the dinner hoar, and note how many of the men are 
reading their newspaper as they eat their dinner. All this is new. 
All this has resulted from the Chatham-street cogitations of Hora- 
tio David Sheppard. 

A distinguished authoress of this city relates the following cir- 
cumstance, which occurred last summer : 

THE MAN WHO DOES TAKE THE PAPER. 

To the Editor of The JV. Y. Tribune. 

Sir : — Not long since I read in your paper an article headed " the man 
^ho never took a newspaper." In contrast to this I would relate to you a 
little incident which came under my own observation : 

Having been disappointed the other morning in receiving that part of my 
breakfast contained in The N. Y. Daily Tribune, I dispatched a messenger 
to see what could be done in the way of satisfaction. After half an hour's 
diligent search he returned, much to my chagrin, empty-handed. Recollecting 
an old copy set me at school after this wise : "If you want a thing done do it 
yourself," I seized my bonnet and sallied forth. Not far from my domicil 
appears each morning, with the rising sun, an old huckster-man, whose stock 
in trade consists of two empty barrels, across which is thrown a pro tern 
counter in the shape of a plank, a pint of pea-nuts, six sticks of peppermint 
candy, half a dozen choleric looking pears and apples, copies of the daily 
papers, and an old stubby broom, with which the owner carefully brushes up 
the nut-shells dropped by graceless urchins to the endangerment of his side- 
walk lease. 

"Have you this morning's Tribune 7" said I, looking as amiable as I 
knew how. 

" No Jlfa'am," was the decided reply. 

" Why — yes, you have," said I, laying my hand on the desired number. 

"Well, you can't have that, Ma'am," said the disconcerted peanut mer- 
chant, " for I have n't read it myself!" 

" I '11 give you three cents for it," said I. 

7 



146 THE FIRM CONTINUES. 

(A shake of the head.) 

" Four cents ?" 

(Another shake.) 

"Sixpence?" (I was getting excited.) 

" It 's no use, Ma'am," said the persistent old fellow. " It 's the only num- 
ber I could get, and I tell you that nobody shall have that Tribune till I have 
read it myself !" 

You should have seen, Mr. Editor, the shapeless hat, the mosaic coat, the 
tattered vest, and the extraordinary pair of trousers that were educated up 
to that Tribune — it was a picture ! Fanny Febn. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE FIEM CONTINUES 

Ix)ttery printing — The Constitutionalist— Dudley S. Gregory— The lottery suicide— 
The firm prospers— Sudden death of Mr. Stol-y- A new partner— Mr. Greeley as a 
master— A dinner story— Sylvester Graham— Horace Greeley at the Graham 
House— Tbe New Yorker projected— James Gordon Bennett. 

The firm of Greeley and Story was not seriously injured by the 
failure of the Morniug Post. They stopped printing it in time, and 
their loss was not more than fifty or sixty dollars. Meanwhile, 
their main stay was Sylvester's Bank Note Reporter, which yielded 
about fifteen dollars' worth of composition a week, payment for which 
was sure and regular. In a few weeks Mr. Story was fortunate 
enough to procure a considerable quantity of lottery printing. This 
was profitable work, and the firm, thenceforth, paid particular at- 
tention to that branch of business, and our hero acquired great dex- 
terity in setting up and arranging the list of prizes and drawings. 

Among other things, they had, for some time, the printing of a 
small tri-weekly paper called the Constitutionalist^ which was the 
organ of the great lottery dealers, and the vehicle of lottery news, a 
small, dingy, quarto of four pages, of which one page only wa? 
devoted to reading matter, the rest being occupied by lotterv 
tables and advertisements. The heading of this interesting per; 



DUDLEY S. GREGORY. 147 

odical was as follows : " The Constitutionalist, "Wilmington, Dela- 
ware. Devoted to the Interests of Literature, Internal Improve- 
ment, Common Schools, &c., &c." The last half square of the last 
column of the Constitutionalist's last page contained a standing 
advertisement, which read thus : — 

" Greeley and Story, No. 54 Liberty-street, New York, respectfully 
solicit the patronage of the public to their business of Letter-Presa 
Printing, particularly Lottery Printing, such as schemes, periodicals, 
&c., which will be executed on favorable terms." 

Horace Greeley, who had by this time become an inveterate 
paragraphist, and was scribbler-general to the circle in which he 
moved, did not disdain to contribute to the first page of the Con- 
stitutionalist. The only set of the paper which has been preserved 
I have examined ; and though many short articles are pointed out 
by its proprietor, as written by Mr. Greeley, I find none of the 
slightest present interest, and none which throw any light upon 
his feelings, thoughts or habits, at the time when they were writ- 
ten. He wrote well enough, however, to impress his friends with 
a high idea of his talent ; and his prompt fidelity in all his transac- 
tions, at this period, secured him one friend, who, in addition to a 
host of other good qualities, chanced to be the possessor, or wielder, 
of extensive means. This friend, at various subsequent crises of 
our hero's life, proved to be a friend indeed, because a friend in 
need. They sat together, long after, the printer and the patron, in 
the representative's hall at Washington, as members of the thirtieth 
Congress. "Why shall I not adorn this page by writing on it the 
name of the kindly, the munificent Dudley S. Gregory, to whose 
wise generosity, Jersey City, and Jersey Citizens, owe so much ; m 
whose hands large possessions are far more a public than a private 
good ? 

Mr. Gregory was, in 1833, the agent or manager of a great lottery 
association, and he had much to do with arranging the tables and 
schemes published in the Constitutionahst. This brought him in 
contact with the senior member of the firm of Greeley and Story, 
to whose talents his attention was soon called by a particular circum- 
stance. A young man, who had lost all his property by the lot- 
tery, in a moment of desperation committed suicide. A great hue 
and cry arose all over the country against lotteries ; and many 



l48 THE FIRM CONTINUES. 

newspapers clamored for their suppression by law. The lottery 
dealers were alarmed. In the midst of this excitement, Horace 
Greeley, Tvhile standing at the case, composed an article on the 
subject, the purport of which is said to have been, that the argu- 
ment for and against lotteries was not affected by the suicide of that 
young man ; but it simply proved, that he, the suicide, was a per- 
son of weak character, and had nothing to do with the question 
whether the State ought, or ought not, to license lotteries. This 
article was inserted in one of the lottery papers, attracted consider- 
able attention, and made Mr. Gregory aware that his printer was 
not an ordinary man. Soon after, Mr. Greeley changed his opin- 
ion on the subject of lotteries, and advocated their suppression 
by law. 

Greeley and Story were now prosperous printers. Their business 
steadily increased, and they began to accumulate capital. The term 
of their copartnership, however, was short. The great dissolver of 
partnerships. King Death himself, dissolved theirs in the seventh 
month of its existence. On the 9th of July, Francis Story went 
down the bay on an excursion, and never returned alive. He was 
drowned by the upsetting of a boat, and his body was brought back 
to the city the same evening. There had existed between these 
young partners a warm friendship. Mr. Story's admiration of the 
character and talents of our hero amounted to enthusiasm; and 
he, on his part, could not but love the man who so loved him. When 
he went up to the coffin to look for the last time on the. marble 
features that had never turned to his with an unkind expression, he 
said, " Poor Story ! shall I ever meet with any one who will bear 
with me as he did ?" To the bereaved family Horace Greeley be- 
haved with the most scrupulous justice, sending Mr. Story's mother 
half of all the little outstanding accounts as soon as they were paid, 
and receiving into the vacant place a brother-in-law of his deceased 
partner, Mr. Jonas Winchester, a gentleman now well known to the 
press and the people of this country. 

A short time before, he had witnessed the marriage of Mr. Win- 
chester by the Episcopal form. He was deeply impressed with the 
ceremony, hstening to it in an attitude expressive of the profoundest 
interest; and when it was over, he exclaimed aloud, "That's the 



SYLVESTER GRAHAM. 149 

most beautiful service I ever saw. If ever I am married it shall be 
by that form." 

The business of " Greeley and Co." went on prospering through 
the year ; but increase of means made not the slightest difference 
in our hero's habits or appearance. His indifference to dress was 
a chronic complaint, and the ladies of his partner's family tried in 
■vain to coax and laugh him into a conformity with the usages of 
society. They hardly succeeded in inducing him to keep his shirt 
buttoned over his white bosom. " He was always a clean man, you 
know," says one of them. There was not even the show or pre- 
tence of discipline in the office. One of the journeymen made an 
outrageous caricature of his employer, and showed it to him one 
day as he came from dinner. "Who's that?" asked the man. 
" That 's me," said the master, with a smile, and passed in to his 
work. The men made a point of appearing to differ in opinion from 
him on every subject, because they liked to hear him talk ; and, 
one day, after a long debate, he exclaimed, " Why, men, if I were 
to say that that black man there was black, you 'd all swear he was 
white." He worked with all his former intensity and absorption. 
Often, such conversations as these took place in the office about the 
middle of the day : 

(H. G., looking up from his work)— Jonas, have I been to dinner? 

(Mr. Winchester) — You ought to know best. I do n't know 

(H. G.) — John, have I been to dinner ? 

(John)— I believe not. Has he, Tom ? 

To which Tom would reply ' no,' or ' yes, according to his own 
recollection or John's wink ; and if the office generally concurred in 
Tom's decision, Horace would either go to dinner or resume his 
work, in unsuspecting accordance therewith. 

It was about this time that he embraced the first of his two 
" isms" (he has never had but two). Graham arose and lectured, 
and mode a noise in the world, and obtained followers. The sub- 
stance of his message was that We, the people of the United States, 
are in the habit of taking our food in too concentrated a form. 
Bulk is necessary as well as nutriment; brown bread is better 
than white ; and meat should be eaten only once a day, or never, 
said the Eev. Dr. Graham. Stimulants, he added, were pernicious, 
and their apparent necessity arises solely from too concentrated, and 



150 THE FIRM CONTINUES. 

therefore indigestible food. A simple message, and one most obvi- 
ously true. The wonder is, not that he should have obtained fol- 
lowers, but that there should have been found one human being so 
besottedly ignorant and so incapable of being instructed as to deny 
the truth of his leading principles. Graham was a remarkable man. 
He was one of those whom nature has gifted with the power of 
taking an interest in human welfare. He was a discoverer of the 
facts, that most of us are sick, and that none of us need be ; that 
disease is impious and disgraceful^ the result, in almost every in- 
stance, of folly or crime. He exonerated God from the aspersions 
cast upon his wisdom and goodness by those who attribute disease 
to Ms "mysterious dispensations," and laid all the blame and shame 
of the ills thixt flesh endures at the door of those who endure them. 
Graham was one of the two or three men to whom this nation 
might, with some propriety, erect a monument. Some day, perhaps, 
a man will take the trouble to read Graham's two tough and wordy 
volumes, and present the substance of them to the public in a form 
which will not repel, but win the reader to perusal and convic- 
tion. 

Horace Greeley, hke every other thinking person that heard Dr. 
Graham lecture, was convinced that upon the whole he was right. 
He abandoned the use of stimulants, and took care in selecting his 
food, to see that there was the proper proportion between its bulk 
and its nutriment ; i. e. he ate Graham bread, little meat, and plen- 
ty of rice, Indian meal, vegetables and fruit. He went, after a time, 
to board at the Graham house, a hotel conducted, as its name im- 
ported, on Graham principles, the rules and regulations having 
been written by Dr. Graham himself. The first time our friend ap- 
peared at the table of the Graham House, a silly woman who lived 
there tried her small wit upon him. 

"It's lucky," said she to the landlady, "that you've no cat in 
the house." 

" Why ?" asked the landlady. 

" Because," was the killing reply, " if you had, the cat would cer- 
tainly take that man with the white head for a gosling, and fly at 
him." 

Gentlemen who .boarded with him at the Graham House, remem- 
ber him as a Portentious Anomaly, one who, on ordinary occasions, 



EDITOR OP THE NEW YORKER. 151 

said nothing, but was occasionally roused to most vehement argu- 
ment ; a man much given to reading and cold-water baths. 

In the beginning of the year 1834, the dream of editorship re- 
vived in the soul of Horace Greeley. A project for starting a week- 
ly paper began to be agitated in the office. The firm, which then 
consisted of three, members, H. Greeley, Jonas Winchester, and E. 
Sibbett, considered itself worth three thousand dollars, and was fur- 
ther of opinion, that it contained within itself an amount of edito- 
rial talent sufficient to originate and conduct a family paper supe- 
rior to any then existing. The firm was correct in both opinions, 
and the result was — the !N"ew Yorker. 

An incident connected with the job office of Greeley & Co. is, 
perhaps, worth mentioning here. One James Gordon Bennett, a 
person then well known as a smart writer for the press, came to 
Horace Greeley, and exhibiting a fifty-dollar bill and some other ^ 
notes of smaller denomination as his cash capital, invited him to 
join in setting up a new daily paper, the New York Herald. Our 
hero declined the offer, but recommended James Gordon to apply 
to another printer, naming one, who he thought would like to 
share in such an enterprise. To him the editor of the Herald did 
apply, and with success. The Herald appeared soon after, under 
the joint proprietorship of Bennett and the printer alluded to. Up- 
on the subsequent burning of the Herald office, the partners sepa- 
rated, and the Herald was thenceforth conducted by Bennett alone. 



CHAPTER XII. 

EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. 

Character of the Paper— Its Early Fortunes— Happiness of the Editor— Scene in the Of- 
fice—Specimens of Horace Greeley's Poetry— Subjects of his Essays— His Opinions 
then— His Marriage — The Silk-stocking Story— A day in Washington— His impress- 
ions of the Senate — Pecuniary diflSculties— Causes of the New-Yorker's ill-success 
as a Business- The missing letters— The Editor gets a nickname — The Agonies 
of a Debtor— Park Benjamin— Henry J. Raymond. 

LiJOKiLY for the purposes of the present writer, Mr. Greeley is 
the most autobiographical of editors. He takes his readers into his 



152 EDITOR OF THE NflW YORKER. 

confidence, his sanctum, and his iron safe. He has not the least ob' 
jection to tell the public the number of his subscribers, the amount 
of his receipts, the excess of his receipts over his expenditures, or 
the excess of his expenditures over his receipts. Accordingly, the 
whole history of the ISTew Yorker, and the story of its editor's joys 
and sorrows, his trials and his triumphs, lie plainly and fully writ- 
ten in the New Yorker itself. 

The New Yorker was, incomparably, the best newspaper of its 
kind that had ever been published in this country. It was printed, 
at first, upon a large folio sheet ; afterwards, in two forms, folio and 
quarto, the former at two dollars a year, the latter at three. Its 
contents were of four kinds ; literary matter, selected from home 
and foreign periodicals, and well selected ; editorial articles by the 
editor, vigorously and courteously expressed ; news, chiefly politi- 
cal, compiled with an accuracy new to American journalism; city, 
literary, and miscellaneous paragraphs. The paper took no side in 
politics, though the ardent convictions of the editor were occasion- 
ally manifest, in spite of himself. The heat and fury of some of 
his later writings never characterize the essays of the New Yorker. 
H6 was always gentle, however strong and decided ; and there was 
a modesty and candor in his manner of writing that made the sub- 
scriber a friend. For example, in the very first number, announc- 
ing the pubhcation of certain mathematical books, he says, " As we 
are not ourselves conversant with the higher branches of mathemat- 
ics, we cannot pretend to speak authoritatively upon the merits of 
these pubhcations" — a kind of avowal which omniscient editors are 
not prone to make. 

A paper, that lived long, never stole into existence more quietly 
than the New Yorker. Fifteen of the personal friends of the edi- 
tors had promised to become subscribers ; and when, on the 22 d ot 
March, 1834, the first number appeared, it sold to the extent of one 
hundred copies. No wonder. Neither of the proprietors had any 
reputation with the public ; all of them were very young, and the 
editor evidently supposed that it was only necessary to make a good 
paper in order to sell a great many copies. The ' Publishers' Ad- 
dress,' indeed, expressly said : — 

" There is one disadvantage attending onr debut -which is seldom oncou^- 



SCENE IN THE OFFICE. 15'i 

fcered in the outset of periodicals aspiring to general popularity and patron- 
age. Ours is not blazoned through the land as, ' The Cheapest Periodical in 
the World,' 'The Largest Paper ever Published,' or any of the captivating 
clap-traps wherewith enterprising gentlemen, possessed of a convenient stock 
of assurance, are wont to usher in their successive experiments on the gulli- 
bility of the Public. No likenesses of eminent and favorite authors will em- 
bellish our title, while they disdain to write for our columns. No * distin- 
guished literary and fashionable characters ' have been dragged in to bolstef 
up a rigmarole of preposterous and charlatan pretensions. And indeed so 
serious is this deficiency, that the first (we may say the only) objection which 
has been started by our most judicious friends in the discussion of our plans 
and prospects, has invariably been this : — ' You do not indulge sufficiently in 
high-sounding pretensions. You cannot succeed without humbug.^ Our an- 
swer has constantly been : — * We shall try,' and in the spirit of this deter- 
mination, we respectfully solicit of our fellow-citizens the extension of that 
share of patronage which they shall deem warranted by our performances 
rather than our promises." 

The public took the IN'ew Yorker at its word. The second num- 
ber had a sale of nearly two hundred copies, and for three months, 
the increase averaged a hundred copies a week. In September, the 
circulation was 2,500 ; and the second volume began with 4,500. 
During the first year, three hundred papers gave the New Yorker 
a eulogistic notice. The editor became, at once, a person known 
and valued throughout the Union. He enjoyed his position thor- 
oughly, and he labored not more truly with all his might, than with 
all his heart. 

The spirit in which he performed his duties, and the glee with 
which he entered into the comicalities of editorial life, cannot be 
more agreeably shown than by transcribing his own account of a 
Scene which was enacted in the office of the New Yorker, soon 
after its establishment. The article was entitled 'Editorial Lux- 
uries.' 

We love not the ways of that numerous class of malcontents who are per- 
petually finding fault with their vocation, and endeavoring to prove them- 
selves the most miserable dogs in existence. If they really think so, why 
under the sun do they not abandon their present evil ways and endeavor to 
hit upon something more endurable 1 Nor do we not deem these grumblers 
more plentiful among the brethren of the quill than in other professions, sim 
ply because the graaniugs uttered through the press are more widely circu 



154 EDITOR OF THE NSfv^ YORKER. 

latod than *vhen merely breathed to the night-air of some unsympathizing 
friend who forgets all about them the next minute ; but we do think the whole 
business is in most ridiculously bad taste. An Apostle teaches us of " groanings 
which cannot be uttered" — it would be a great relief to readers, if editorial 
groanings were of this sort. Now, we pride ourselves rather on the delights 
of our profession ; and we rejoice to say, that we find them neither few nor 
inconsiderable. There is one which even now flitted across our path, which, 
to tell the truth, was rather above the average — in fact, so good, that we can- 
not afford to monopolize it, even though we shall be constrained to allow oui 
reader a peep behind the curtain. So, here it is : 

[Scene. Editorial Sanctum — Editor solus — i. e. immersed in thought and 
newspapers, with a journal in one hand and busily spoiling white paper with 
the other — only two particular friends talking to him at each elbow. Devil 
calls for 'copy' at momentary intervals. Enter a butternut-colored gentle* 
man, who bows most emphatically.] 

Gent. Are you the editor of the New Yorker, sir? 

Editor. The same, sir, at your service. 

Gent. Did you write this, sir 1 

Editor. Takes his scissored extract and reads — ' So, when we hear the 
brazen vender of quack remedies boldly trumpeting his miraculous cures, or 
the announcement of the equally impudent experimenter on public credulity 
(Goicard) who announces, that he 'teaches music in six lessons, and half a 
dozen distinct branches of science in as many weeks,' we may be grieved, and 
even indignant, that such palpable deceptions of the simple and unwary should 
not be discountenanced and exposed.' 

That reads like me, sir. I do not remember the passage ; but if you found 
it in the editorial columns of the New Yorker, I certainly did write it. 

Gent. It was in No. 15. " The March of Humbug." 

Editor. Ah ! now I recollect it — there is no mistake in my writing that 
article. 

Geiit. Did you allude to me, sir, in those remarks? 

Editor. You will perceive that the name ' Goward^ has been introduced 
by yourself — there is nothing of the kind in my paper. 

Gent. Yes, sir ; but I wish to know whether you intended those remarks to 
apply to me. 

Editor. "Well, sir, without pretending to recollect exactly what I may have 
been thinking of while writmg an article three months ago, I will frankly say, 
that I think I must have Jiad you in my eye while penning that paragraph. 

Gent. Well, sir, do you know that such remarks are grossly unjust and im- 
pertinent to me 1 

Editor. I know nothing of you, sir, but from the testimony of friends and 
your own advertisements in the papers— jind these combine to assure me 
that jou are a quack. 



HORACE Greeley's poetry, 155 

Gent. That is what my enemies say, sir ; but if you examine my certi- 
ficates, sir, you will know the contrary. 

Editor. I am open to conviction, sir. 

Gent. Well, sir, I have been advertising in the Traveller for some time, 
and have paid them a great deal of money, and here they come out this week 
and abuse me — so, I have done with them ; and, now, if you will say you will 
not attack me in this fashion, I will patronize you (holding out some tempt- 
ing advertisements). 

Editor. Well, sir, I shall be very happy to advertise for you ; but I can 
give no pledge as to the course I shall feel bound to pursue. 

Ge7it. Then, I suppose you will continue to call me a quack. 

Editor. I do not know that I am accustomed to attack my friends and 
patrons ; but if I have occasion to speak of you at all, it shall be in such 
terms as my best judgment shall dictate. 

Gent. Then, I am to understand you as my enemy. 

Editor. Understand me as you please, sir ; I shall endeavor to treat you 
and all men with fairness. 

Gent. But do you suppose I am going to pay money to those who ridicule 
me and hold me up as a quack? 

Editor. You will pay it where you please, sir — I must enjoy my opinions. 

Gent. Well, but is a man to be judged by what his enemies say of him 7 
Every man has his enemies. 

Editor. I hope not, sir ; I trust I have not an enemy in the world. 

Gent. Yes, you have — I^m your enemy I — and the enemy of every one who 
misrepresents me. I can get no justice from the press, except among the 
penny dailies. I '11 start a paper myself before a year. I '11 show that 
some folks can edit newspapers as well as others. 

Editor. The field is open, sir, — go ahead. 

[Exit in a rage. Rev. J. Goward, A.M., Teacher 
(in six lessons) of everything.] 

Another proof of the happiness of the early days of our heroes 
editorial career might be found in the habit he then had of writing 
verses. It will, perhaps, surprise some of his present readers, who 
know him only as one of the most practical of writers, one given 
to politics, sub-soil plows, and other subjects supposed to be unpo- 
etical, to learn that he was in early life a very frequent, and by no 
means altogether unsuccessful poetizer. Many of the early numbers 
of the New-Yorker contain a poem by " H. G." He has published, 
in all, about thirty-five poems, of which the New-Yorker contains 
twenty ; the rest may be found in the Southern Literary Messenger, 
and various other magazines, annuals, and occasional volumes. J 



156 EDITOR OF THE Nl^V YORKER. 

have seen no poem of his which does not contain the material of 
poetry — thought, feehng, fancy ; but in few of them was the poet 
enabled to give his thought, feeling and fancy complete expression. 
A specimen or two of his poetry it would be an unpardonable omis- 
sion not to give, in a volume like this, particularly as his poetic 
period is past. 

The foUovdng is a tribute to the memory of one who was the ideal 
hero of his youthful politics. It was published in the first number 
of the New-Yorker : 

O^ THE DEATH OF WILLIAM WIRT. 

Rouse not the muflaed drum. 
Wake not the martial trumpet's mournful sound 

Eor him whose mighty voice in death is dumb ; 
Who, in the zenith of his high renown, 

To the grave went down. 

Invoke no cannon's breath 
To swell the requiem o'er his ashes poured — 
Silently bear him to the house of death : — 
The aching hearts by whom he was adored, 
He won not with the sword. 

No ! let affection's tear 
Be the sole tribute to his memory paid ; 
Earth has no monument so justly dear 
To souls like his in purity arrayed — 

Never to fade. 

I loved thee, patriot Chief! 
I battled proudly 'neath thy banner pure ; 

Mine is the breast of woe — the heart of grief, 
Which suffer on unmindful of a cure — 
Proud to endure. 

But vain the voice of wail 
For thee, from this dim vale of sorrow fled — 



NERO's TOMB. 157 

Earth has no spell whose magic shall not fail 
To light th© gloom that shrouds thy narrow bed, 
Or woo thee from the dead. 

Then take thy long repose * 

Beneath the shelter of the deep green sod : 

Death but a brighter halo o'er thee throws — 
Thy fame, thy soul alike have spurned the clod- 
Rest thee in God. 

A series of poems, entitled " Historic Pencilings," appear in the 
first volume of the New Yorker, over the initials " H. G." These 
were the poetized reminiscences of his boyish historical reading. Of 
these poems the following is, perhaps, the most pleasing and char- 
acteristic : 

NERO'S TOMB. ^ 

* " When Nero perished by the justest doom, 
***** 
Some hand unseen strewed flowers upon his grav*." 

BVBOM. 

The tyi'ant slept in death ; 
His long career of blood had ceased forever, 

And but an empire's execrating breath 
Remained to tell of crimes exampled never. 

Alone remained ? Ah ! no ; 
Rome's scathed and blackened walls retold th« story 

Of conflagrations broad and baleful glow. 
Such was the halo of the despot's glory ! 

And round his gilded tomb 
Came crowds of sufferers— but not to weep — . 

ISTot theirs the wish to light the house of gloom 
With sympathy. No ! Curses wild and deep 

His only requiem made. 
But soft ! see, strewed around his dreamless bed 

The trophies bright of many a verdant glade, 
The living's tribute to the honored dead. 



158 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. 

What mean those gentle flowers ? 
So sweetly smiling in the face of wrath — 

Children of genial suns and fostering showers. 
Now crushed and trampled in the million's path — 
^ "What do they, withering here ? 

Ah ! spurn them not ? they tell of sorrow's flow — 

There has been one to shed affection's tear, 
And 'mid a nation's joy, to feel a pang of woe! 

No ! scorn them not, those flowers, 
They speak too deeply to each feeling heart — 

They tell that Guilt hath still its holier hours — 
That none may e 'er from eartli unmourned depart ; 

That none hath all effaced 
The spell of Eden o 'er his spirit cast. 

The heavenly image in his features traced — 
^ Or quenched the love unchanging to the last ! 

Another of the ' Historic Pencilings,' was on the ' Dlkth of Per- 
icles.' This was its last stanza : — 

No ! let the brutal conqueror 

Still glut his soul with war, 
And let the ignoble million 

"With shouts surround his car ; 
But dearer far the lasting fame 

"Which twines its wreaths with peace — 
Give me the tearless memory 

Of the mighty one of Greece, 

Only one of his poems seems to have been inspired by the ten- 
der passion. It is dated May 31st, 1834. Who this bright Vision 
was to whom the poem was addressed, or whether it was ever vis- 
ible to any but the poet's eye, has not transpired. 

FANTASIES. 

They deem me cold, the thoughtless and light-hearted, 
In that I worship not at beauty's shrine ; 



FANTASIES. 

Tliey deem me cold, that through the years departed, 
I ne'er have bowed m« to some form divine. 

They deem me proud, that, where the world hath flattered, 
I ne'er have knelt to languish or adore ; 

They think not that the homage idly scattered 
Leaves the heart bankrupt, ere its spring is o'er. 

No ! in my soul there glows but one bright vision, 

And o'er my heart there rules but one fond spell, 
Bright'ning my hours of sleep with dreams Elysian 

Of one unseen, yet loved, aye cherished well ; 
Fnseen ? Ah ! no ; her presence round me lingers, 

Chasing each wayward thought that tempts to rove ; 
Weaving Affection's web with fairy fingers, 

And waking thoughts of purity and love. 

Star of my heaven ! thy beams shall guide me ever, 

Though clouds obscure, and thorns bestrew my path ; 
As sweeps my bark adown life's arrowy river 

Thy angel smile shall soothe misfortune's wrath ; 
And ah ! should Fate ere speed her deadliest arrow, 

Should vice allure to plunge in her dark sea, 
Be this the only shield my soul shall borrow — 

One glance to Heaven — one burning thought of thee ! 

I ne'er on earth may gaze on those bright features, 

Nor drink the light of that soul-beaming eye ; 
But wander on 'mid earth's unthinking creatures. 

Unloved in life, and unlamented die ; 
But ne'er shall fade the spell thou weavest o'er me. 

Nor fail the star that lights my lonely way ; 
Still shall the night's fond dreams that light restore me, 

Though Fate forbid its gentler beams by day. 

I have not dreamed that gold or gems adorn thee — 
That Flatt'ry's voice may vaunt thy matchless form ; 

I little reck that worldlings all may scorn thee. 
Be but thy boul still pure, thy feelings warm ; 

f 



159 



160 EDITOR OF THE NE% YORKER. 

Be thine bright Intellect's unfading treasures, 

' And Poesy's more deeply-hallowed spell, 
And Faith the zest which heightens all thy pleasures, 
"With trusting love— Maid of my soul ! farewell ! 

One more poem claims place here, if from its autobiographi«dl 
character alone. Those who believe there is such a thing as regen- 
eration, who know that a man can act and live in a disinterested 
spirit, will not read this poem with entire incredulity. It appeared 
in the Southern Literary Messenger for August, 1840. 

THE FADED STAPvS. 
\ 

I mind the time when Heaven's high dome 

Woke in my soul a wondrous thrill — 
When every leaf in Nature's tome 

Bespoke creations marvels stiU ; 
When mountain cliff and sweeping glade. 

As morn unclosed her rosy bars. 
Woke joys intense — but naught e'er bade 

My heart leap up, like you, bright stars ! 

Calm ministrants to God's high glory ! 

Pure gems around His bm*ning throne ! 
Mute watchers o'er man's strange, sad story 

Of Crime and Woe through ages gone ! 
'Twas yours the mild and hallowing spell 

That lured me from ignoble gleams — 
Taught me where sweeter fountains swell 

Than ever bless the worldling's dreams. 

How changed was life ! a waste no more, 

Beset by Want, and Pain, and Wrong ; 
Earth seemed a glad and fairy shore, 

Yocal with Hope's inspiring song. 
But ye, bright sentinels of Heaven ! 

Far glories of Night's radiant sky ! 
Who, as ye gemmed the brow of Even, 

Has ever deemed Man born to die ? 



SUBJECTS OF HIS ESSAYS. 161 

'Tis faded now, that wondrous grace 

That once on Heaven's forehead shone ; 
I read no more in Nature's face , 

A soul responsive to my own. 
A dimness on my eye and spirit, 

Stern time has cast in hurrying by ; 
Few joys my hardier years inherit, 

And leaden dullness rules the sky. 

Yet mourn not I — a stern, higli duty 

Now nerves my arm and fires my brain ; 
Perish the dream of shapes of beauty, 

So that tMs strife be not in vain ; 
To war on Fraud entrenched with Power — 

On smooth Pretence and specious Wrong — 
This task be mine, though. Fortune lower ; 

For this be banished sky and song. 

The subjects upon which the editor of the New Yorker tit»»d to 
descant, as editor, contrast curiously with, those upon which, as 
poet, he' aspired to sing. Turning over the well-printed pages of 
that journal, we find calm and rather elaborate essays upon ' The 
Interests of Labor,' ' Our Relations with Francis,' ' Speculation,' 
' The Science of Agriculture,' * Usury Laws,' ' The Currency,' ' Over- 
trading,' ' Divorce of Bank and State,' ' National Conventions,' * In- 
ternational Copyright,' ' Relief of the Poor,' ' The Public Lands,' 
' Capital Punishment,' ' The Slavery Question,' and scores of others 
equally unromantic. There are, also, election returns given with 
great minuteness, and numberless paragraphs recording nomina- 
tions. The New Yorker gradually became the authority in the de- 
partment of political statistics. There were many people who did 
not consider an election ' safe,' or ' lost,' until they saw the figures 
in the New Yorker. And the New Yorker deserved this distinc- 
tion; for there never lived an editor more scrupulous upon the 
point of literal and absolute correctness than Horace Greeley. To 
quote the language of a proof-reader — "If there is a thing that will 
make Horace furious, it is to have a name spelt wrong, or a mistake 



162 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. 

in election returns."' In fact, he was morbid on the subject, till 
time toughened him ; time, and proof-readers. 

The opinions which he expressed in the columns of the IN'ew 
Yorker are, in general, those to which he still adheres, though on a 
few subjects he used language which he would not now use. His 
opinions on those subjects have rather advanced than changed. 
For example : he is now opposed to the punishment of death in all 
cases, except when, owing to peculiar circumstances, the immediate 
safety of the community demands it. In June, 1836, he wrote : — 
" And now, having fully expressed our conviction that the punish- 
ment 0^ death is one which should sometimes be inflicted, we may 
add, that we would have it resorted to as unfrequently as possible. 
Nothing, in our view, but cold-blooded, premeditated, unpaUiated 
murder, can fully justify it. Let this continue to be visited with the 
sternest penalty." 

Another example. The following is part of an article on the 
Slavery Question, which appeared in July, 1834. It differs from 
his present writings on the same subject, not at all in doctrine, 
though very much in tone. Then, he thought the North the ag- 
gressor. Since then, we have had Mexican Wars, Nebraska bihs, 
etc., and he now writes as one assailed. 

•' To a philosophical observer, the existence of domestic servitude in one 
portion of the Union while it is forbidden and condemned in another, would 
indeed seem to afford no plausible pretext for variance or alienation. The 
Union was formed with a perfect knowledge, on the one hand, that slavery ex- 
isted at the south) and, on the other, that it was utterly disapproved and dis- 
countenanced at the north. But the framers of the constitution saw no reason 
for distrust and dissension in this circumstance. Wisely avoiding all discuss- 
ion of a subject so delicate and exciting, they proceeded to the formation of 
' a more perfect union,' which, leaving each section in the possession of its 
undoubted right of regulating its own internal government and enjoying its 
own speculative opinions, provided only for the common benefit and mutual 
well-being of the whole. And why should not this arrangement be satisfac- 
tory and perfect 1 Why should not even the existing evils of one section be 
left to the correction of its own wisdom and virtue, when pointed out by the 
unerring finger of experience 7 

* * if if. if ■)(. % if if 

We entertain no doubt that the system of slavery is at the bottom of most 
of the evils which afflict 'the communities of the south — that it has occasioned 



HIS OPINIONS THEN. 163 

the decline of Virginia, of Maryland, of Carolina. "We see it even retarding 
the growth of the new State of Missouri, and causing her to fall far behind 
her sister Indiana in improvement and population. And we venture to assert, 
that if the objections to slavery, drawn from a correct and enlightened politiv 
cal economy, were once fairly placed before the southern public, they would 
need no other inducements to impel them to enter upon an immediate and 
effective course of legislation, with a view to the ultimate extinction ot the 
evil. But, right or wrong, no people have a greater disinclination to the lec- 
tures or even the advice of their neighbors ; and we venture to predict, that 
whoever shall bring about a change of opinion in that quarter, must, in this 
case, reverse the proverb which declares, that ' a prophet hath honor except 
in his own country.' " 

After extolling the Colonization Society, and condemning the form- 
ation of anti-slavery societies at the North, as irritating and useless, 
the editor proceeds : — " We hazard the assertion, that there never 
existed two distinct races — so diverse as to he incapable of amalga- 
mation — inhabiting the same district of country, and in open and 
friendly contact with each other, that maintained a perfect equality 
of political and social condition. * * * it remains to be proved, 
that the history of the nineteenth century will afford a direct con- 
tradiction to all former experience. * * * y^Q cannot close 
without reiterating the expression of our firm conviction, that if 
the African race are ever to be raised to a degree of comparative 
happiness, intelhgence, and freedom, it must be in some other region 
than that which has been the theatre of their servitude and degra- 
dation. They must ' come up out of the land of Egypt and out of 
the house of bondage ;' even though they should be forced to cross 
the sea in their pilgrimage and wander forty years in the wilder- 
ness." 

Again. In 1835, he had not arrived at the Maine Law, but waa 
feeling his way towards it. He wrote thus : 



" Were we called upon to indicate simply the course which should be pursued 
for the eradication of this crying evil, our compliance would be a far easier 
matter. We should say, unhesitatingly, that the vending of alcohol, or of 
liquors of which alcohol forms a leading component, should be regulated by 
the laws which govern the sale of other insidious, yet deadly, poisons. It 
should be kept for sale only by druggists, and dealt out in small portions, 
and with like regard to the character and ostensible purpose of the applicant 



164 EDITOR OF THE NBW YORKER. 

as in the case of its counterpart. ^ * * * But we must not forget, that 
we are to determine simply what may be done by the friends of temperance 
for the advancement of the noble cause in which they are engaged, rather 
than what the more ardent of them (with whom we are proud to rank our- 
selves) would desire to see accomplished. We are to look at things as they 
are; and, in that view, all attempts to interdict the sale of intoxicating liquord 
in our hotels, our country stores, and our steam-boats, in the present state 
of public opinion, must be hopelessly, ridiculously futile. * * * * The 
only available provision bearing on this branch of the traffic, which could be 
urged with the least prospect of success, is the imposition of a real license- 
tax— say from $100 to $1000 per annum— which would have the effect of 
diminishing the evil by rendering less frequent and less universal the temp- 
tations which lead to it. But even that, we apprehend, would meet with 
strenuous opposition from so large and influential a portion of the community, 
as to render its adoption and efficiency extremely doubtful." 

The most bold and stirring of his articles in the New Yorker, 
was one on the " Tyranny of Opinion," which was suggested by the 
extraordinary enthusiasm with which the Fourth of July was cel- 
ebrated in 1837. A part of this article is the only specimen of the 
young editor's performance^ which, as a specimen, can find place in 
this chapter. The sentiments which it avows, the country has not 
yet caught up with ; nor will it, for many a year after the hand 
that wrote them is dust. After an allusion to the celebration, the 
article proceeds: 

" The great pervading evil of our social condition is the worship and the 
bigotry of Opinion. While the theory of our political institutions asserts or 
implies the absolute freedom of the human mind — the right not only of free 
thought and discussion, but 'of the most unrestrained action thereon within 
the wide boundaries prescribed by the laws of the land, yet the practical com- 
mentary upon this noble text is as discordant as imagination can conceive. 
Beneath the thin veil of a democracy more free than that of Athens in her 
glory, we cloak a despotism more pernicious and revolting than that of 
Turkey or China. It is the despotism of Opinion. Whoever ventures to 
propound opinions strikingly at variance with those of the majority, must be 
content to brave obloquy, contempt and persecution. If political, they ex- 
clude him from public employment aad trust ; if religious, from social inter- 
course and general regard, if not from absolute rights. However moderately 
heretical in his political views, he cannot be a justice of the peace, an officer 
of the customs, or a lamp-lighter ; while, if he be positively and frankly 
sceptical in his theology, grave judges pronounce him incompetent to givt 



HIS* MARRIAGE. ' 165 

testimony in courts of justice, though his character for veracity be indubitable. 
That is but a narrow view of the subject which ascribes all this injustice to 
the errors of parties or individuals ; it flows naturally from the vice of the 
age and country — the tyranny of Opinion. It can never be wholly rectified 
until the whole community shall be brought to feel and acknowledge, that the 
only security for public liberty is to be found in the absolute and unqualified 
freedom of thought and expression, confining penal consequences to acts only 
which are detrimental to the welfare of society. 

" The philosophical observer from abroad may well be astounded by the 
gross inconsistencies which are presented by the professions and the conduct 
of our people. Thousands will flock together to drink in the musical periods 
of some popular disclaimer on the inalienable rights of man, the inviolability 
of the immunities granted us by the Constitution and Laws, and the invariable 
reverence of freemen for the majesty of law. They go away delighted with 
our institutions, the orator and themselves. The next day they may be en- 
gaged in 'lynching' some unlucky individual who has fallen under their 
sovereign displeasure, breaking up a public meeting of an obnoxious cast, or 
tarring and feathering some unfortunate lecturer or propagandist, whose 
views do not square with their own, but who has precisely the same right to 
enjoy and propagate his opinions, however erroneous, as though he inculcated 
nothing but what every one knows and acknowledges already. The shame- 
lessness of this incongruity is sickening ; but it is not confined to this glaring 
exhibition. The sheriff, town-clerk, or constable, who finds the political 
majority in his district changed, either by immigration or the course of 
events, must be content to change too, or be hurled from his station. Yet 
what necessary connection is there between his politics and his office ? Why 
might it not as properly be insisted that a town-oflicer should be six feet 
high, or have red hair, if the majority were so distinguished, as that he 
should think with them respecting the men in high places and the measures 
projected or opposed by them 1 And how does the proscription of a man in 
any way for obnoxious opinions differ from the most glaring tyranny 7" 

In the New Yorker of July 16th, 1836, may be seen, at the 
head of a long list of recent marriages, the following interesting an- 
nouncement : 

"In Immanuel church, "Warrentown, North Carolina, on Tues- 
day morning, 5th inst., by Eev. "William Norwood, Mr. Horace 
Greeley, editor of the New Yorker, to Miss Y. Cheney, of War- 
rentown, formerly of this city," 

The lady was by profession a teacher, and to use the emphatic 
language of one- of her friends, ' crazy for knowledge.' The ac- 
quaintance had been formed at the Graham House, and was eon- 



166 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. 

tinued by correspondence after Miss Cheney, in the pursuit of her 
vocation, had removed to North Carolina. Thither the lover hied ; 
the two became one, and returned together to New York. They 
were married, as he said he would be, by the Episcopal form. 
Sumptuous was the attire of the bridegroom ; a suit of fine black 
broadcloth, and " on this occasion only," a pair of silk stockings 1 
It appears that silk stockings and matrimony were, in his mind, as- 
sociated ideas, as rings and matrimony, orange blossoms and matri- 
mony, are in the minds of people in general. Accordingly, he 
bought a pair of silk stockings ; but trying on his wedding suit pre- 
vious to his departure for the south, he found, to his dismay, that 
the stockings were completely hidden by the affluent terminations 
of another garment. The question now at once occurred to his log- 
ical mind, ' What is the use of having silk stockings, if nobody can 
see that you have them V He laid the case, it is said, before his 
tailor, who, knowing his customer, immediately removed the diffi- 
culty by cutting away a crescent of cloth from the front of the 
aforesaid terminations, which rendered the silk stockings obvious 
to the most casual observer. Such is the story. And I regret 
that other stories, and true ones, highly honorable to his head 
and heart, delicacy forbids the telling of in this place. 

The editor, of course, turned his wedding tour to account in the 
way of his profession. On his journey southward, Horace Gree- 
ley first saw Washington, and was impressed favorably by the 
houses of Congress, then in session. He wrote admiringly of the 
Senate : — " That the Senate of the United States is unsurpassed in 
intellectual greatness by any body of fifty men ever convened, is 
a trite observation. A phrenologist would fancy a strong con- 
firmation of his doctrines in the very appearance of the Senate ; 
a physiognomist would find it. The most striking person on the 
floor is Mr. Clay, who is incessantly in motion, and whose spare, 
erect form betrays an easy dignity approaching to majesty, and a 
perfect gracefulness, such as I have never seen equaled. His coun- 
tenance is intelligent and indicative of character ; but a glance at 
his figure while his face was completely averted, would give assur- 
ance that he was no common man. Mr. Calhoun is one of the 
plainest men and certainly the dryest, hardest speaker I ever 
listened to. The flow of his ideas reminded me of a barrel filled 



PECUNIARY DIFFICULTIES. 167 

with pebbles, each of Avhich must find great diflSculty in escaping 
from the very solidity and number of those pressing upon it and 
impeding its natural motion. Mr. Calhoun, though far from being 
a handsome, is still a very remarkable personage ; but Mr. Benton 
has the least intellectual countenance I ever saw on a senator. Mr. 
Webster was not in his place." * * * * u j^q ^q^^ 
speech was that of Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. That man is not 
appreciated so highly as he should and must be. He has a 
rough readiness, a sterling good sense, a republican manner and 
feeling, and a vein of biting, though homely satire, which will 
yet raise him to distinction in the iSTational Councils." 

"Were Greeley and Co. making their fortune meanwhile ? Far 
from it. To edit a paper well is one thing ; to make it pay as a 
business is another. The New Yorker had soon become a famous, 
an admired, and an influential paper. Subscriptions poured in ; the 
establishment looked prosperous ; but it was not. The sorry tale 
of its career as a business is very fully and forcibly told in the vari- 
ous addresses to, and chats with, Our Patrons, which appear in the 
volumes of 1837, that 'year of ruin,' and of the years of slow re- 
covery from ruin which followed. In October, 1837, the editor 
thus stated his melancholy case : 

" Ours is a plain story ; and it shall be plainly told. The New Yorker was 
established with very moderate expectations of pecuniary advantage, but 
with strong hopes that its location at the head-quarters of intelligence for the 
continent, and its cheapness, would insure it, if well conducted, such a patron- 
age as would be' ultimately adequate, at least, to the bare expenses of its pub- 
lication. Starting with scarce a shadow of patronage, it had four thousand 
Qve hundred subscribers at the close of the first year, obtained at an outlay of 
three thousand dollars beyond the income in that period. This did not mate- 
rially disappoint the publishers' expectations. Another year passed, and their 
subscription increased to seven thousand, with a further outlay, beyond all re- 
ceipts, of two thousand dollars. A third year was commenced with two edi- 
tions — folio and quarto — of our journal ; and at its close, their conjoint sub- 
scriptions amounted to near nine thousand five hundred ; yet our receipts had 
again fallen two thousand dollars behind our absolutely necessary expendi- 
tures. Such was our situation at the commencement of this year of ruin ; 
and we found ourselves wholly unable to continue our former reliance on the 
honor and ultimate good faith of our backward subscribers. Two thousand five 
hundred of them were stricken from our list, and every possible retrenckment of 



168 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. 

our expenditures effected. With the exercise of the most parsimonious frugal, 
ity, and aided by (he extreme kindness and generous confidence of our friends, 
we have barely and with great difficulty kept our bark afloat. For the future, we 
have no resource but in the justice and generosity of our patrons. Our humble 
portion of this world's goods has long since been swallowed up in the all-devour- 
ing vortex ; both of the Editor's original associates in the undertaking have 
abandoned it with loss, and those who now fill their places have invested to the 
full amount of their ability. Not a farthing has been drawn from the concern 
by any one save for services rendered ; and the allowance to the proprietors 
having charge respectively of the editorial and publishing departments has 
been far less than their services would have commanded elsewhere. The last six 
months have been more disastrous than any which preceded them, as we have 
continued to fall behind our expenses without a corresponding increase of pat- 
ronage. A large amount is indeed due us ; but we find its collection almost 
impossible, except in inconsiderable portions and at a ruinous expense. All 
appeals to the honesty and good faith of the delinquents seem utterly fruit- 
less. As a last resource, therefore, and one besides which we have no alterna- 
tive, wo hereby announce, that from and after this date, the price of the New 
Yorker will be three dollars per annum for the folio, and four dollars for the 
quarto edition. 

"Friends of the New Yorker ! Patrons ! we appeal to you, not for charity, 
but for justice. Whoever among you is in our debt, no matter how small the 
sum, is guilty of a moral wrong in withholding the payment. AVe bitterly 
need it — we have a right to expect it. Six years of happiness could not atone 
for the horrors which blighted hopes, agonizing embarrassments, and gloomy 
apprehensions— all arising in great measure from your neglect — have con- 
spired to heap upon us during the last six months. We have borne all in si- 
lence : we BOW tell you we must have our pay. Our obligations for the next 
two months are alarmingly heavy, and they must be satisfied, at whatever sac- 
rifice. We shall cheerfully give up whatever may remain to us of property, 
and mortgage years of future exertion, sooner than incur a shadow of dishonor, 
by subjecting those who have credited us to loss or inconvenience. We must 
pay ; and for the means of doing it we appeal most earnestly to you. It is 
possible that we might still further abuse the kind solicitude of our friends ; 
but the thought is agony. We should be driven to what is but a more delicate 
mode of beggary, when justice from those who withhold the hard earnings of 
our unceasing toil would place us above the revolting necessity ! At any rate, 
we will not submit to the humiliation without an effort. 

" We have struggled until we can no longer doubt that, with the present 
currency — and there seems little hope of an immediate improvement — we can- 
not live at our former prices. The suppression of small notes was a blow to 
cheap city papers, from which there is no hope of recovery. With a currency 
including notes of two and three dollars, one half our receipts would come to 



rBotmrARY difficulties. 109 

us directly from the subscribers ; without such notes, we must submit to an 
agent's charge on nearly every collection. Besides, the notes from the South 
Western States are now at from twenty to thirty per cent, discount; and have 
been more : those from the West range from six to twenty. All notes beyond 
the Delaware River range from twice to ten times the discount charged upon 
them when we started the New Yorker. We cannot afford to depend exclu- 
sively upon the patronage to be obtained in our immediate neighborhood ; we 
cannot retain distant patronage without receiving the money in which alone 
our subscribers can pay. But one course, then, is left us — to tax our valuable 
patronage with the delinquences of the worse than worthless— the paying for 
the non-paying, and those who send us par-money, with the evils of our pres- 
ent depraved and depreciated currency." 

Two years after, there appeared another chapter of pecuniary his- 
tory, written in a more hopeful strain. A short extract will com- 
plete the reader's knowledge of the subject : 

" Since the close of the year of ruin (1837), we have pursued the even tenor 
of our way with such fortune as was vouchsafed us ; and, if never elated with 
any signal evidence of popular favor, we have not since been doomed to gazo 
fixedly for months into the yawning abyss of Ruin, and feel a moral certainty 
that, however averted for a time, that must be our goal at last. On the con- 
trary, our affairs have slowly but steadily improved for some time past, and 
we now hope that a few months more will place us beyond the reach of pecu- 
niary embarrassments, and enable us to add new attractions to our journal. 

" And this word ' attraction' brings us to the confession that the success of 
our enterprise, if success there has been, has not been at all of a pecuniary 
cast thus far. Probably we lack the essential elements of that very desirable 
kind of success. There have been errors, mismanagement and losses in the 
conduct of our business. We mean that we lack, or do not take kindly to, the 
arts which contribute to a newspaper sensation. When our journal first ap- 
peared, a hundred copies marked the extent to which the public curiosity 
claimed its perusal. Others establish new papers, (the New World and Brother 
Jonathan Mr. Greeley might have instanced,) even without literary reputa- 
tion, as we were, and five or ten thousand copies are taken at once — just to 
see what the new thing is. And thence they career onward on the crest of a 
towering wave. 

" Since the New Yorker was first issued, sevon copartners in its publication 
have successively withdrawn from the concern, generally, we regret to say, 
without having improved their fortunes by the connection, and most of them 
with the conviction that the work, however valuable, was not calculated to 
prove lucrative to its proprietors. ' You don't humbug enough,' has been 
the complaint of more than one of our retiring associates ; * you ought to 



170 EDITOR OF THE NEW YORKER. 

make more noise, and vaunt your own merits. The world will never believe 
you print a good paper unless you tell them so.' Our course has not been 
changed by these representations. We have endeavored in all things to 
maintain our self-respect and deserve the good opinion of others ; if we have not 
succeeded in the latter particular, the failure is much to be regretted, but hardly 
to be amended by pursuing the vaporous course indicated. If our journal be a 
good one, those who read it will be very apt to discover the fact ; if it be not, 
our assertion of its excellence, however positive and frequent, would scarcely 
outweigh the weekly evidence still more abundantly and convincingly fur- 
nished. We are aware that this view of the case is controvered by practical 
results in some cases ; but we are content with the old course, and have never 
envied the success which Merit or Pretence may attain by acting as its own 
trumpeter." 

The New Yorker never, during the seven years of its existence, 
became profitable ; and its editor, during the greater part of the 
time, derived even his means of subsistence either from the business 
of job printing or from other sources, which will be alluded to in a 
moment. The causes of the New Yorker's signal failure as a br^i- 
ness seem to have been these : 

1. It was a very good paper, suited only to the more intelligent 
class of the community, which, in all times and countries, is a small 
class. " We have a pride," said the editor once, and truly, "in be- 
lieving that we might, at any time, render our journal more attrac- 
tive to the million by rendering it less deserving ; and that by merely 
considering what would be sought after and read with avidity, with- 
out regard to its moral or its merit, we might easily become popu- 
lar at the mere expense of our own self-approval." 

2. It seldom praised, never pufied, itself. The editor, however, 
seems to have thought, that he might have done both with pro- 
priety. Or was he speaking in pure irony, when he gave the Mirror 
this ' first-rate notice.' "There is one excellent quaUty," said he, 
"which has always been a characteristic of the Mirror — the virtue 
of self-appreciation. We call it a virtue, and it is not merely one 
in itself, but the parent of many others. As regards our vocation, 
it is alike necessary and just. The world should be made to under- 
stand, that the aggregate of talent, acquirement, tact, industry, and 
general intelligence which is required to sustain creditably the char- 
acter of a public journal, might, if j adiciously parcelled out, form 
!he stamina of, at least, one professor of languages, two brazen lee- 



17] 

turers on science, ethics, or phrenology, and three average congress- 
ional or other demagogues. Why, then, should starvation wave 
his skeleton sceptre in terrorem over such a congregation of avail- 
able excellences." 

8. The leading spirit of the New Yorker had a singular, a consti- 
tutional, an incurable inability to conduct business. His character 
is the exact opposite of that ' hard man ' in the gospel, who reaped 
where he'liad not sown. He was too amiable, too confiding, too 
absent, and too ' easy,' for a biisiness man. If a boy stole his let- 
ters from the post-office, he would admonish him, and either let him 
go or try him again. If a writer in extremity ofi'ered to do certain 
paragraphs for three dollars a week, he would say, " No, that 's too 
little ; I '11 give you five, till you can get something better." On 
one occasion, he went to the post-office himself, and receiving a 
large number of letters, put them, it is said, into the pockets of 
his overcoat. On reaching the office, he hung the overcoat on its 
accustomed peg, and was soon lost in the composition of an article. 
It was the last of the chilly days of spring, and he thought no more 
either of his overcoat or its pockets, till the autumn. Letters kept 
coming in complaining of the non-receipt of papers which had been 
ordered and paid for ; and the office was sorely perplexed. On the 
first cool day in October, when the editor was shaking a summer's 
dirt from his overcoat, the missing letters were found, and the mys- 
tery was explained. Another story gives us a peep into the office 
of the New Yorker. A gentleman called, one day, and asked to 
see the editor. " I am the editor," said a little coxcomb who was 
temporarily in charge of the paper. " You are not the person I 
want to see," said the gentleman. "Oh!" said the puppy, "you 
wish to see the Printer. He 's not in town." The men in the com- 
posing-room chanced to overhear this colloquy, and thereafter, our 
liei'o was called by the nickname of ' The Printer,' and by that 
alone, whether he was present or absent. It was " Printer, how 
will you have this set," or " Printer, we 're waiting for copy." All 
this was very pleasant and amiable ; but, businesses which paij are 
never carried on in that style. It is a pity, but a fact, that busi- 
nesses which pay, are generally conducted in a manner which is 
exceedingly disagreeable to those who assist in them. 

4. The Year of Ruin. 



172 EDITOR OF THE NEW YtRKER. 

6. The ' cash principle,' the only safe one, had not heen yet ap- 
plied to the newspaper business. The New Yorker lost, on an aver- 
age, 1,200 dollars a year by the removal of subscribers to parts 
unknown, who left without paying for their paper, or notifying the 
office of their departure. 

Of the unnumbered pangs that mortals know, pecuniary anxiety 
is to a sensitive and honest young heart the bitterest. To live up- 
on the edge of a gulf that yawns hideously and always at our feet, 
to feel the ground giving way under the house that holds our hap- 
piness, to walk in the pathway of avalanches, to dwell under a 
volcano rumbling prophetically of a coming eruption, is not pleas- 
ant. But welcome yawning abyss, welcome earthquake, avalanche, 
volcano ! They can crush, and bm*n, and swallow a man, but not 
degrade him. The terrors they inspire are not to be compared 
with the deadly and withering Fear that crouches sullenly in the 
soul of that honest man who owes much money to many people, 
and cannot think how or when he can pay it. That alone has 
power to take from life all its charm, and from duty all its interest. 
For other sorrows there is a balm. That is an evil unmingled, 
while it lasts ; and the light which it throws upon the history of 
mankind and the secret of man's struggle with fate, is purchased 
at a price fully commensurate with the value of that light. 

. The editor of the New Yorker suffered all that a man could suf- 
fer from this dread cause. In private letters he alludes, but only 
alludes, to his anguish at this period. "Through most of the time," 
he wrote years, afterwards, " I was very poor, and for four years re- 
ally bankrupt ; though always paying my notes and keeping my 
word, but living as poorly as possible." And again : " My embar- 
rassments were sometimes dreadful ; not that I feared destitution, 
but the fear of involving my friends in my misfortunes was very 
bitter." He came one afternoon into the house of a friend, and 
handing her a copy of his paper, said : " There, Mrs. S., that is the 
last number of the New Yorker you will ever see. I can secure 
my friends against loss if I stop now, and I '11 not risk their money 
by holding on any longer." He went over that evening to Mr. 
Gregory, to make known to him his determination ; but that con- 
stant and invincible friend would not listen to it. He insisted on 
his continuing the struggle, and offered his assistance with such 



PARK BENJAMIN. HENRY J. RAYMONi). 173 

frank and earnest cordiality, that our hero's scruples were at 
length removed, and he came home elate, and resolved to battle 
another year with delinquent subscribers and a depreciated currency. 

During the early years of the New Yorker, Mr. Greeley had lit- 
tle regular assistance in editing the paper. In 1839, Mr. Park Ben- 
jamin contributed much to the interest of its columns by his lively 
and humorous critiques ; but his connection with the paper was not 
of long duration. It was long enough, however, to make him ac- 
quainted with the character of his associate. On retiring, in Octo- 
ber, 1839, he wrote : " Grateful to my feelings has been my inter- 
course with the readers of the New Yorker and with its principal 
editor and proprietor. By the former I hope my humble efforts 
will not be unremembered ; by the latter I am happy to believe 
that the sincere friendship which I entertain for him is reciproca- 
ted. I still insist upon my editorial right- so far as to say in oppo- 
sition to any veto which my coadjutor may interpose, that I can- 
not leave the association which has been so agreeable to me with- 
out paying to sterling worth, unbending integrity, high moral prin- 
ciple and ready kindness, their just due. These qualities exist in 
the character of the man with whom now I part ; and by all, to 
whom such qualities appear admirable, must such a character be 
esteemed. His talents, his industry, require no commendation from 
me ; the readers of this journal know them too well ; the public is 
sufficiently aware of the manner in which they have been exerted. 
What I have said has flowed from my heart, tributary rather to its 
own emotions than to the subject which has called them forth; 
his plain good name is his best eulogy." 

A few months later, Mr. Henry J. Eaymond, a recent graduate 
of Burlington College, Vermont, came to the city to seek his for- 
tune. He had written some creditable sketches for the New 
Yorker, over the signature of "Fantome," and on reaching the 
city called upon Horace Greeley. The result was tliat he entered 
the office as an assistant editor " till he could get something bet- 
ter," and it may encourage some young, hard-working, uuif^cognized, 
ill-paid journalist, to know that the editor of the New York Daily 
Times began his editorial career upon a salary of eight dollars a 
week. The said unrecognized, however, should further be informed, 
that Mr. Eaymond is the hardest and swiftest wrrker connected 
with the New York Press. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE JEFFEESONIAN. 

Objects of the Jeffersonian— Its character— A novel Glorious- Victory paragi'aph-— Th« 
Graves and Cilley duel— The Editor overworked. 

The slender income derived from the New Yorker obliged its 
editor to engage in other labors. He wrote, as occasion offered, for 
various periodicals. The Daily "Whig he supplied with its leading 
article for several months, and in 1838 undertook the entire edito- 
rial charge of the Jeffersonian, a weekly paper of the ' campaign * 
description, started at Albany on the third of March, and continu- 
ing in existence for one year. 

With the conception and the establishment of the Jeffersonian, 
Horace Greeley had nothing to do. It was published under the 
auspices and by the direction of the Whig Central Committee of 
the State of New York, and the fund for its establishment was con- 
tributed by the leading politicians of the State in sums of ten dol- 
lars. "I never sought the post of its editor," wrote Mr. Greeley in 
1848, "but was sought for it by leading whigs whom I had never 
before personally known." It was afforded at fifty cents a year, 
attained rapidly a circulation of fifteen thousand ; the editor, who 
spent three days of each week in Albany, receiving for his year's 
services a thousand dollars. The ostensible object of the paper was 
— to quote the language of its projectors — "to furnish to every 
person within the State of New York a complete summary of politi- 
cal intelligence, at a rate which shall place it absolutely within the 
reach of every aian who will read it." But, according to the sub- 
sequent explanation of the Tribune, "it was established on the im- 
pulse of thio whig tornado of 1837, to secure a like result in 1838, 
BO as to give the "Whig party a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, 
Senate, Assembly, U. S. Senator, Congressmen, and all the vast ex- 
ecutive patronage of the State, then amounting to millions of dol- 



GLORIOUS VICTORY. 175 

The Jeffersonian was a good paper. It was published in a neat 
tiuarto form of eight pages. Its editorials, generally few and brief, 
were written to convince, not to inflame, to enlighten, not to blind. 
It pubhshed a great many of the best speeches of the day, some 
for, some against, its own principles. Each number contained a full 
and well-compiled digest of political intelligence, and one page, or 
more, of general intelligence. It was not, in the slightest degree, 
hke what is generally understood by a ' campaign paper.' Capital 
letters and po'nts of admiration were as little used as in the sedate 
and courteous columns of the« !N"ew Yorker ; and there is scarcely 
anything to be found of the ' Glorious- Victory ' sort except this : 

" Glorious Victory ! ' We have met the enemy, and they are ours !' Our 
whole ticket, with the exception of town clerk, one constable, three fence-view- 
ers, a pound-master and two hog-reeves elected ! There never was such a 
triumph !" 

Stop, my friend. Have you elected the best men to the several offices to be 
filled 1 Have you chosen men who have hitherto evinced not only capacity 
but integrity ? — men whom you would trust implicity in every relation and 
business of life 7 Above all, have you selected the very best person in the 
township for the important office of Justice of the Peace 1 If yea, we rejoice 
with you. If the men whose election will best subserve the cause of virtue 
and public order have been chosen, even your opponents will have little rea- 
son for regret. If it be otherwise, you have achieved but an empty and du- 
bious triumph. 

It would be gratifying to know what the Whig Central Commit- 
tee thought of such unexampled ' campaign ' language. In a word, 
the Jeffersonian was a better fifty cents worth of thought and fact 
than had previously, or has since, been afforded, in the form of a 
weekly paper. 

The columns of the Jeffersonian afford little material for the pur- 
poses of this volume. There are scarcely any of those character- 
istic touches, those autobiographical allusions, that contribute so 
much to the interest of other papers with which our hero has been 
connected. This is one, however : 

(Whosoever may have picked up the wallet of the editor of this 
paper — lost somewhere near State street, about the 20th ult., shall 
receive half the contents, all round, by returning the balance to this 
oflSce.) 



176 THE JEFFERS(JNIAN, 

I will indulge the reader with one article entire from the Jeffer- 
Bonian ; 1, because it is interesting ; 2, because it will serve to show 
the spirit and the manner of the editor in recording and comment- 
ing upon the topics of the day. He has since written more em- 
phatic, but not more effective articles, on similar subjects : 

THE TEAGEDY AT WASHINGTON. 

The whole country is shocked, and its moral sensibilities outraged, by the 
horrible tragedy lately perpetrated at Washington, of which a member of 
Congress was the victim. It was, indeed, an awful, yet we will hope not a 
profitless catastrophe ; and we blush for human nature when we observe the 
naost systematic efforts used to pervert to purposes of party advantage and 
personal malignity, a result which should be sacred to the interests of human- 
ity and morality — to the stern inculcation and enforcement of a reverence for 
the laws of the land and the mandates of God. 

Nearly a month since, a charge of corruption, or an offer to sell official in- 
fluence and exertion for a pecuniary consideration, against some unnamed 
member of Congress, was transmitted to the New York Courier and Enquirer 
by its correspondent, ' the Spy in Washington.' Its appearance in that journal 
called forth a resolution from Mr. Wise, that the charge be investigated by 
the House. On this an irregular and excited debate arose, which consumed a 
day or two, and which was signalized by severe attacks on the Public Press 
of this country, and on the letter-writers from Washington. In particular, 
the Courier and Enquirer, in which this charge appeared, its chief Editor, and 
its correspondent the Spy, were stigmatized; and Mr. Cilley, a member from 
Maine, was among those who gave currency to the charges. Col. Webb, the 
Editor, on the appearance of these charges, instantlyproceeded to Washington, 
and there addressed a note to Mr. Cilley on the subject. That note, it ap- 
pears, was courteous and dignified in its language, merely inquiring of Mr. 
C. if his remarks, published in the Globe, were intended to convey any per- 
sonal disrespect to the writer, and containing no menace of any kind. It was 
handed to Mr. Cilley by Mr. Graves, a member from Kentucky, but declined 
by Mr. C, on the ground, as was understood, that he did not choose to be 
drawn into controversy with Editors of public journals in regard to his remarks 
in the House. This was correct and honorable ground. The Constitution 
expressly provides that members of Congress shall not be responsible else- 
where for words spoken in debate, and the provision is a most noble and 
necessary one. 

But Mr. Graves considered the reply as placing him in an equivocal posi- 
tion. If a note transmitted through his hands had been declined, as was 
liable to be understood, because the writer was not worthy the treatment of 
a gentleman, the dishonor was reflected on himself as the bearer of a disgrace- 



THE GRAVES AND CILLEY DUEL. 177 

ful message. Mr. Graves, thereforej wrote a note to Mr. C, asking h^m if 
he were correct in his understanding that the letter in question was declined 
because Mr. C. could not consent to hold himself accountable to public jour- 
nalists for words spoken in debate, and not on grounds of personal objection 
to Col. "Webb as a gentleman. To this note Mr. Cilley replied, on the ad- 
visement of his friends, that he declined the note of Col. Webb, because he 
" chose to be drawn into no controversy with /mn," and added that ho 
" neither af&rmed nor denied anything in regard to his character." This was 
considered by Mr. Graves as involving him fully in the dilemma which he 
was seeking to avoid, and amounting to an impeachment of his veracity, and 
he now addressed another note to inquire, " whether you declined to receive his 
(Col. Webb's) communication on the ground of any personal objection to him 
as a gentleman of honor 7^' To this query Mr. Cilley declined to give an 
answer, denying the right of Mr. G. to propose it. The next letter in course 
was a challenge from Mr. Graves by the hand of Mr. Wise, promptly respond- 
ed to by Mr. Cilley through Gen. Jones of Wisconsin. 

The weapons selected by Mr. Cilley were rifles ; the distance eighty yards. 
(It was said that Mr. Cilley was practicing with the selected weapon the 
morning of accepting the challenge, and that he lodged eleven balls in suc- 
CQSsion in a space of four inches square.) Mr. Graves experienced some diffi- 
culty in procuring a rifle, and asked time, which was granted ; and Gen. 
Jones, Mr. Cilley's second, tendered him the use of his own rifle ; but, mean- 
time, Mr. Graves had procured one. 

The challenge was delivered at 12 o'clock on Friday ; the hour selected by 
Mr. Cilley was 12 of the following day. His unexpected choice of rifles, how- 
ever, and Mr. Graves' inability to procure one, delayed the meeting till 2 
o'clock. 

The first fire was ineflfectual. Mr. Wise, as second of the challenging party, 
now called all parties together, to effect a reconciliation. Mr. C. declining to 
negotiate while under challenge, it was suspended to give room for explana- 
tion. Mr. Wise remarked — " Mr. .Jones, these gentlemen have come here 
without animosity towards each other ; they are fighting merely upon a point 
of honor ; cannot Mr. Cilley assign some reason for not receiving at Mr. 
Graves' hands Colonel Webb's communication, or make some disclaimer which 
will relieve Mr. Graves from his position 7" The reply was — " I am author- 
ized by my friend, Mr. Cilley, to say that in declining to receive the note from 
Mr. Graves, purporting to be from Colonel Webb, he meant no disrespect to 
Mr. Graves, because he entertained for him then, as he now does, the highest 
respect and the most kind feelings ; but that he declined to receive the note 
because he chose not to be drawn into any controversy with Colonel Webb.' 
This is Mr. Jones' version ; Mr. Wise thinks he said, " My friend refuses to 
disclaim disrespect to Colonel Webb, because he does not choose to be drawn 
into an expression of opinion as to him." After consultation, Mr Wise re- 



178 THE JEFFERSpNIAN. 

turned to Mr. Jones and said, " Mr. Jones, this answer leaves Mr. Graves pre- 
cisely in the position in which he stood when the challenge was sent." 

Another exchange of shots was now had to no purpose, and another attempt 
at reconciliation was likewise unsuccessful. The seconds appear to have been 
mutually and anxiously desirous that the affair should here terminate, but no 
arrangement could be effected. Mr. Graves insisted that his antagonist should 
place his refusal to receive the message of which he was the bearer on some 
grounds which did not imply such an opinion of the writer as must reflect dis- 
grace on the bearer. He endeavored to have the refusal placed on the ground 
that Mr. C. " did not hold himself accountable to Colonel Webb for words 
spoken in debate." This was declined by Mr. Cilley, and the duel proceeded. 

The official statement, drawn up by the two seconds, would seem to import 
that but three shots were exchanged ; but other accounts state positively that 
Mr. Cilley fell at the fourth fire. He was shot through the body, and died in 
two minutes. On seeing that he had fallen, badly wounded, Mr. Graves ex- 
pressed a wish to see him, and was answered by Mr. Jones — " My friend is 
dead, sir !" 

Colonel Webb first heard of the difficulty which had arisen on Friday even- 
ing, but was given to understand that the meeting would not take place for 
•several days. On the following morning, however, he had reason to suspect 
the truth. He immediately armed himself, and with two friends proceeded to 
Mr. Cilley's lodgings, intending to force the latter to meet him before he did 
Mr. Graves. He did not find him, however, and immediately proceeded to the 
old dueling ground at Bladensburgh, and thence to several other places, to 
interpose himself as the rightful antagonist of Mr. Cilley. Had he found the 
parties, a more dreadful tragedy still would doubtless have ensued. But the 
place of meeting had been changed, and the arrangements so secretly made, 
that though Mr. Clay and many others were on the alert to prevent it, the 
duel was not interrupted. 

" We believe we have here stated every material fact in relation to this 
melancholy business. It is suggested, however, that Mr. Cilley was less dis- 
posed to concede anything from the first in consideration of his own course 
when a diflaculty recently arose between two of his colleagues, Messrs. Jarvis 
and Smith, which elicited a challenge from the former, promptly and nobly 
declined by the latter. This refusal, it is said, was loudly and vehemently 
stigmatized as cowardly by Mr. Cilley. This circumstance does not come to 
lis well authenticated, but it is spoken of as notorious at Washington. 

" But enough of detail and circumstance. The reader who has not seen the 
official statement will find its substance in the foregoing. He can lay the 
blame where he chooses. We blame only the accursed spirit of False Honor 
which required this bloody sacrifice — the horrid custom of Dueling which ex- 
acts and palliates this atrocity. It appears evident that Mr. Cilley's course 
must have been based on the determination that Col. Webb was no* entitled 



THE EDITOR OVERWORKED. 179 

to be regarded as a gentleman ; and if so, there was hardly an escape from 
a bloody conclusion after Mr. Graves had once consented, however uncon- 
sciously, to bear the note of Col. Webb. Each of the parties, doubtless, acted 
as he considered due to his own character ; each was right in the view of the 
duelist's code of honor, but fearfully wrong in the eye of reason, of morality, 
of humanity, and the imperative laws of man and^f God. Of the principals, 
one sleeps cold and stiff beneath the icy pall of winter and the clods of the 
valley ; the other — far more to be pitied — lives to execrate through years of 
anguish and remorse the hour when he was impelled to imbrue his hands in 
the blood of a fellow-being. 

Mr. Graves we know personally, and a milder and more amiable gentleman 
is rarely to be met with. He has for the last two years been a Representative 
from the Louisville District, Kentucky, and is universally esteemed and be- 
loved. Mr. Cilley was a young man of one of the best families in New Hamp- 
shire; his grandfather was a Colonel and afterwards a General of the Revo- 
lution. His brother was a Captain in the last "War with Great Britain, and 
leader of the desperate bayonet charge at Bridgewater. Mr. Cilley himself, 
though quite a young man, has been for two years Speaker of the House of 
Representatives of Maine, and was last year elected to Congress from the 
Lincoln District, which is decidedly opposed to him in politics, and which 
recently gave 1,200 majority for the other side. Young as he was, he had ac- 
quired a wide popularity and influence in his own State, and was laying the 
foundations of a brilliant career in the National Councils. And this man, with 
so many ties to bind him to life, with the sky of his future bright with hope, 
without an enemy on earth, and with a wife and three children of tender age 
whom his death must drive to the verge of madness — has perished miserably 
in a combat forbidden by God, growing out of a difference so pitiful in itself, 
80 direful in its consequences. 

Could we add anything to render the moral more terribly impressive ? 

The year of the Jeffersonian was a most laborious and harassing 
Dne. No one but a Greeley would or could have endured such con- 
tinuous and distracting toils. He had two papers to provide for ; 
papers diverse in character, papers published a hundred and fifty 
miles apart, papers to which expectant thousands looked for their 
weekly supply of mental pabulum. As soon as the agony of getting 
the New Yorker to press was over, and copy for the outside of the 
next number given out, away rushed the editor to the Albany boat ; 
and after a night of battle with the bed-bugs of the cabin, or the 
politicians of the hurricane-deck, he hurried off to new duties at the 
office of the Jeffersonian. The Albany boat of 1838 was a very 
different style of conveyance from the Albany boat of the present 



180 



THE LOG CA^IN. 



year of our I^ord. It was, in fact, not much more than six times aa 
elegant and comfortal)le as the steamers that, at this hour, ply in 
the seas and channel! of Europe. The sufferings of our hero may 
be imagined. 

But, not his labors. They can be understood only by those who 
know, by blessed experience, what it is to get up, or try to get up, 
a good, correct, timely, and entertaining weekly paper. The sub- 
ject of editorial labor, however, must be reserved for a future page. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LOG-CABIN". 

"tIPPEOANOE and TYLER TOO." 

Wire-pulling— The delirium of 1840— The Log-Cabin— Unprecedented hit— A glance at 
its pages— Log-Cabin jokes— Log-Cabin songs- Horace Greeley and the cake-bas- 
ket— Pecuniary diflSculties continue— The Tribune announced. 

WiEE-PULLiNG is a Sneaking, bad, demoralizing business, and the 
people hate it. The campaign of 1840, which resulted in the elec- 
tion of General Harrison to the presidency, was, at bottom, the 
revolt of the people of the United States against the wire-pulling 
principle, supposed to be incarnate in the person of Martin Van 
Buren. Other elements entered into the delirium of those mad 
months. The country w^as only recovering, and that slowly, from 
the disasters of 1836 and 1837, and the times were still 'hard.' 
But the fire and fury of the struggle arose from the fact, that Gen- 
eral Harrison, a man who had done something, was pitted against 
Martin Van Buren, a man who had pulled wires. The hero of Tip- 
pecanoe and the farmer of North Bend, against the wily diplomatist 
who partook of sustenance by the aid of gold spoons. The Log- 
Cabin against the White House. 

Great have been the triumphs of wire-pulling in this and other 
countries; and yet it is an unsafe thing to engage in. As bluff 
King Hal melted away, with one fiery glance, all the greatness of 



UNPRECEDENTED HIT. 181 

"Wolsey ; as the elephant, with a tap of his trunk, knocks the breath 
out of the Httle tyrant whom he had been long accustomed implicitly 
to obey, — so do the People, in some quite unexpected moment, blow 
away, with one breath, the elaborate and deep-laid schemes of the 
republican wire-puller ; and him / They have done it, O wire-pul- 
ler ! and will do it again. \ 

"Who can have forgotten that campaign of 1840? The 'mass 
meetings,' the log-cabin raisings, the 'hard cider' drinking, the song 
singing, the Tippecanoe clubs, the caricatures, the epigrams, the 
jokes, the universal excitement! General Harrison was sung into 
fche presidential chair. Van Buren was laughed out of it. Every 
town had its log-cabin, its club, and its chorus. Tippecanoe song- 
books were sold by the hundred thousand. There were Tippecanoe 
medals, Tippecanoe badges, Tippecanoe flags, Tippecanoe handker- 
chiefs, Tippecanoe almanacs, and Tippecanoe shaving-soap. All 
other interests were swallowed up in the one interest of the elec- 
tion. All noises were drowned in the cry of Tippecanoe and Tyler 
too. 

The man who contributed most to keep alive and increase the 
popular enthusiasm, the man who did most to feed that enthusiasm 
with the substantial fuel of fact and argument, was, beyond all ques- 
tion, Horace Greeley. 

On the second of May, the first number of the Log-Cabin ap- 
peared, by ' H. Greeley & Co,,' a weekly paper, to be published 
simultaneously at New York and Albany, at fifty cents for the cam- 
paign of six months. It was a small paper, about half the size of 
the present Tribune ; but it was conducted with wonderful spirit, 
and made an unprecedented hit. Of the first number, an edition of 
twenty thousand was printed, which Mr. Greeley's friends thought a far 
greater number than would be sold ; but the edition vanished from the 
counter in a day. Eight thousand more were struck off ; they were 
sold in a morning. Four thousand more were printed, and still the 
demand seemed unabated. A further supply of six thousand was 
printed, and the types were then distributed. In a few days, how- 
ever, the demand became so urgent, that the number was re-set, and 
an edition of ten thousand struck off. Altogether, forty-eight thou- 
sand of the first number were sold. Subscribers came pouring in 
at the rate of seven hundred a dav. The list lensrtliened in a fev; 



182 THE LOG CABIW. 

weeks to sixty thousand names, and kept increasing till the weekly 
issue was between eighty and ninety thousand. ' H. Greeley and 
Co.' were really overwhelmed with their success. They had made 
no preparations for such an enormous increase of business, and they 
were troubled to hire clerks and folders fast enough to get their 
stupendous edition into the mails. 

The Log Cabin is not dull reading, even now, after the lapse of 
fifteen years ; and though the men and the questions of that day 
are, most of them, dead. But tlien^ it was devoured with an eager- 
ness, which even those who remember it can hardly realize. Let 
us glance hastily over its pages. 

The editor explained the ' objects and scope' of the little paper, 
thus : — 

" The Log Cabin will be a zealous and unwavering advocate of 
the rights, interests and prosperity of our whole country, but es- 
pecially those of the hardy subduers and cultivators of her soil. It 
will be the advocate of the cause of the Log Cabin against that of 
the Custom House and Presidential Palace. It will be an advocate 
of the interests of unassuming industry against the schemes and 
devices of functionaries ' drest in a little brief authority,' v»'hose 
salaries are trebled in value whenever Labor is forced to beg for em- 
ployment at three or four shillings a day. It will be the advocate of 
a sound, uniform, adequate Currency for our whole country, against 
the visionary projects and ruinous experiments of the official Dous- 
terswivels of the day, who commenced by promising Prosperity, 
Abundance, and Plenty of Gold as the sure result of their policy ; 
and lo! we have its issues in disorganization, bankruptcy, low 
wages and treasury rags. In fine, it will be the advocate of Free- 
dom, Improvement, and of National Eeform, by the election of 
Harrison and Tyler, the restoration of purity to the government, of 
efficiency to the public will, and of Better Times to the People. 
Such are the objects and scope of the Log Cabin." 

The contents of the Log Cabin were of various kinds. The first 
page was devoted to Literature of an exclusively Tippecanoe charac- 
ter, such as " Sketch of Gen. Harrison," " Anecdote of Gen. Har 
rison," " General Harrison's Creed," " Slanders on Gen. Harrison re 
futed," " Meeting of the Old Soldiers," &c. The first number had 
ticenty. eight articles and paragraphs of this description. The sec- 



A GLANCE AT ITS PAGES. 183 

ond page contained editorials and correspondence. The third was 
where the " Splendid Victories," and " Unprecedented Triumphs," 
were recorded. The fourth page contained a Tippecanoe song with 
music, and a few articles of a miscellaneous character. Dr. Chan- 
ning's lecture upon the Elevation of the Laboring Classes ran 
through several of the early numbers. Most of the numbers con- 
tain an engraving or two, plans of General Harrison's battles, por- 
traits of the candidates, or a caricature. One of the caricatures 
represented Yan Buren caught in a trap, and over the picture was 
the following explanation: — "The New Era has prepared and 
pictured a Log Cabin Trap, representing a Log Cabin — set as a 
figure-4-trap, and baited with a barrel of hard cider. By the follow- 
ing it will be seen that the trap has been speijng, and a sly nibbler 
from Kinderhook is looking out through the gratings. Old Hickory 
is intent on prying him out; but it is manifestly no go." The 
editorials of the Log Cabin were mostly of a serious and argument- 
ative cast, upon the Tariff, the Currency, and the Hard Times. 
They were able and timely. The spirit of the campaign, however, 
is contained in the other departments of the paper, from which a 
few brief extracts may amuse the reader for a moment, as well as 
illustrate the feeling of the time. 

The Log Cabins that were built all over the country, were 
' raised ' and inaugurated with a great show of rejoicing. In one 
number of the paper, there are accounts of as many as six of these 
hilarious ceremonials, with their speechifyings and hard-cider drink- 
ings. The humorous paragraph annexed appears in an early num- 
ber, under the title of " Thrilling Log Cabin Incident :" — 

" The whigs of Erie, Pa., raised a Log Cabin last week from wliicli the ban- 
ner of Harrison and Reform was displayed. While engaged in the dedica- 
tion of their Cabin, the whigs received information which led them to appre- 
hend a hostile demonstration from Harbor Creek, a portion of the borough 
whose citizens had ever been strong Jackson and Van Buren men. Soon after- 
wards a party Df horsemen, about forty ^in number, dressed in Indian costume, 
armed with tomahawks and scalping knives, approached the Cabin! The 
whigs made prompt preparations to defend their banner. The scene became in- 
tensely exciting. The assailants rode up to the Cabin, dismounted, and surren- 
dered themselves up as voluntary prisoners of war. On inquiry, they proved tc 
be stanch Jackson men from Harbor Creek, who had taken that mode of array- 



184 THE LOa CABIN. 

ing themselves under the Harrison Banner ! The tomahawk was then bur- 
ied ; after which the string of the latch was pushed out, and the Harbor-Creek- ~ 
ers were ushered into the Cabin, where they pledged their support to Harri* 
son in a bumper of good old hard cider." 

The great joker of that election, as of every other since, was Mr. 
Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, the wittiest of editors, living or 
dead. Many of his good things appear in the Log Cabin, but most 
of them allude to men and events that have been forgotten, and tho 
point of the joke is lost. The following are three of the Log Cab- 
in jokes ; they sparkled in 1840, flat as they may seem now : — 

" The Globe says that ' there are but two parties in the country, the poor 
man's party and the rich man's party,' and that ' Mr. Van Puren is the friend 
of the former.' The President is certainly in favor of strengthening the poor 
man's party, numericaZ/y/ He goes for impoverishing the whole country — 
except the office-holders." 

"What do the locofoeos expect by vilifying the Log Cabin 7 Do they not 
know that a Log Cabin is all the better for being daubed with mud ?" 

" A whig passing through the streets of Boston a few mornings ago, espied 
a custom-house officer gazing ruefully at a bulletin displaying the latest news 

of the Maine election. " Ah! Mr. , taking your bitters this morning, 

I see." The way the loco scratched gravel was a pattern for sub-treasurers." 

One specimen paragraph from the department of political news 
will suffice to show the frenzy of those who wrote for it. A letter- 
writer at Utica, describing a ' mass meeting ' in that city, bursts up- 
on his readers in this style : 

" This has been the proudest, brightest day of my life ! Never — no, never, 
have I before seen the people in their majesty ! Never were the foundations 
of popular sentiment so broken up ! The scene from early dawn to sunset, 
has been one of continued^ increasing, bewildering enthusiasm. The hearts of 
TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND FREEMEN have been Overflowing with gratitude, and 
gladness, and joy. It has been a day of jubilee — an era of deliverance 
FOR Central New York ! The people in waves have poured in from the val- 
leys and rushed down from the mountains. The city has been vocal with elo- 
quence, with music, and with acclamations. Demonstrations of strength, and em- 
blems of victory, and harbingers of prosperity are all around us, cheering and 
animating, and assuring a people who-*,re finally and effectually aroused. I wiU 
not now attempt to describe the procession of the people. Suffice it to say that 



LOG CABIN SONGS. 185 "^ 

there was an ocean of them ! The procession was over five miles LONa. * 
* * Governor Seward and Lieut. G-ov. Bradish were unanimously nomina- 
ted by resolution for re-election. The result was communicated to thq people 
aspembled in Mass in Chancery Square, whose response to the nomination was 
spontaneous, loud, deep and resounding.'* 

The profusion of the presidential mansion was one of the stand- 
ing topics of those who Avished to eject its occupant. In one num- 
ber of the Log-Cabin is a speech, delivered in the House of Kepre- 
sentatives by a member of the opposition, in which the bills of the 
persons who supplied the White House are given at length. Take 
these specimens : 

34 table knives ground, $1,37^ 

2 new knife blades, 75 

2 cook's knife blades, 2,50 

4,621 

2 dozen brooms, $3,75 

1-2 do. hard scrubs, 2,37 

1-2 do. brooms, 1,38 

6,50 

2 tin buckets, $2,00 

Milk strainer and skimmer, 92^ 

Chamber bucket, 2,00 

2 dozen tart pans, 2,50 

This seems like putting an extremely fine point upon a political ar- 
gument. "What the orator wished to show, however, was, that such 
articles as the above ought to be paid for out of the presidential 
salary, not the public treasury. The speech exhibited some columns 
of these ' house-bills.' It made a great sensation, and was enough 
to cure any decer^; man of a desire to become a serrant of the 
people. 

But, as I have observed. Gen. Harrison was sung into the presi- 
dential chair. The Log Cabin preserves a large number of the politi- 
cal ditties of the time ; the editor himself contributing two. A very 
few stanzas will suffice to show the quality of the Tippecanoe poetry 
The following is one from the 'Wolverine's Song': 



186 THE LOG CABIN. 

We know that Van Bur en can ride in his coach, 

With servants, forbidding the Vulgar's approach— 
We know that his fortune such things will allow, 
And we know that our candidate follows the plough ; 
But what if he does 7 Who was bolder to fight 
In his country's defence on that perilous night, 
When naught save his valor sufficed to subdue 
Our foes at the battle of Tippecanoe ? 

Hurrah for Tippecanoe ! 
He dropped the red Locos at Tippecanoe ! 

Prom the song of the ' Buckeye Cabin,' these are two stanzas ! 

Oh ! where, tell me where, was your Buckeye Cabin made 1 
Oh ! where, tell me where, was your Buckeye Cabin made ? 
'Twas made among the merry boys that wield the plough and spade 
Where the Log Cabins stand in the bonnie Buckeye shade. 

Oh ! what, tell me what, is to be your Cabin's fate 7 
Oh ! what, tell me what, is to be your Cabin's fate 1 
We '11 wheel it to the Capitol and place it there elate, 
For a token and a sign of the bonnie Buckeye State. 

The ' Turn Out Song ' was very popular, and easy to sing : 

From the White House, now Matty, turn out, turn out, 
From the White House, now Matty, turn out ! 

Since there you have been 

No peace we have seen. 
So Matty, now please to turn out, turn out, 
So Matty, now please to turn out ! 
******* 
Make way for old Tip ! turn out, turn out ! 
Make way for old Tip, turn out ! 

'Tis the people's decree, 

Their choice he shall be. 
So, Martin Van Buren, turn out, turn out, 
So, Martin Van Buren, turn out ! 

But of all the songs ever sung, the most absurd and the most tell' 
Ing, was that which began thus : 



LOG CABIN SONGS. 187 

What has caused this great commotion-motion-motion 

Our country through 1 ^ 

It is the ball a-rolling on 
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too, 
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too ; 
And with them we '11 beat little Van ; 
Van, Van, Van is a used-up man, 
And with them wo '11 beat little Van. 

This song had two advan '-.ages. The tune — half chaunt, half 
jig — was adapted to bring out all the absurdities of the words, and, 
in particular, those of the last two lines. The second advantage 
was, that stanzas could be multiplied to any extent, on the spot, to 
suit the exigences of any occasion. For example : 

" The beautiful girls, God bless their souls, souls, souls, . 
The country through. 
Will all, to a man, do all they can 
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too ; 
And with them," etc., etc. 

During that summer, ladies attended the mass meetings in thou- 
sands, and in their honor the Hnes just quoted were frequently sung. 

These few extracts from the Log Cabin show the nature of the 
element in which our editor was called upon to work in the hot 
months of IS-iO. His own interest in the questions at issue was in- 
tense, and his labors were incessant and most arduous. He wrote 
articles, he made speeches, he sat on. committees, he traveled, 
he gave advice, he suggested plans; while he had two news- 
papers on his hands, and a load of debt upon his shoulders. His 
was a willing servitude. From the days of his apprenticeship he 
had observed the course of ' Democratic' administrations with dis- 
gust and utter disapproval, and he had borne his full share of the 
consequences of their bad measures. His whole soul was in this 
contest. He fought fairly too. His answer to a, correspondent, that 
' articles assailing the personal character of Mr. Yan Buren or any 
of his supporters cannot be published in the Cabin,' was in advance 
of the politics of 1840. 

One scene, if it could be portrayed on the printed page as visibly 
as it exists in the memories of those who witnessed it, would show 



188 THE LOG CABIN. 

better than declaratory words, liow absorbed Mr. Greeley was in 
politics during this famous 'campaign.' It is a funny story, and 
literally true. 

Time, — Sunday evening. Scene, — the parlor of a friend's house. 
Company, — ^numerous and political, except the ladies, who are 
gracious and hospitable. Mr. Greeley is expected to tea, but does 
not come, and the meal is transacted without him. Tea over, he 
arrives, and plunges headlong into a conversation on the currency. 
The lady of the house thinks he ' had better take some tea,' but 
cannot get a hearing on the subject ; is distressed, puts the question 
at length, and has her invitation hurriedly declined ; brushed aside, 
in fact, with a wave of the hand. 

" Take a cruller, any way," said she, handing him a cake-basket 
containing a dozen or so of those unspeakable, Dutch indigestibles. 

The expounder of the currency, dimly conscious that a large ob- 
ject was approaching him, puts forth his hands, still vehemently 
talking, and takes, not a cruller, but the cake-basket, and deposits 
it in his lap. The company are inwardly convulsed, and some of 
the weaker members retire to the adjoining apartment, the ex- 
pounder continuing his harangue, unconscious of their emotions or 
its cause. Minutes elapse. His hands, in their wandering through 
the air, come in contact with the topmost cake, which they take 
and break. He begins to eat ; and eats and talks, talks and eats, 
till he has finished a cruller. Then he feels for another, and eats 
that, and goes on, slowly consuming the contents of the basket, till 
the last crum is gone. The company look on amazed, and the kind 
lady of the house fears for the consequences. She had heard that 
cheese is an antidote to indigestion. Taking the empty cake- 
basket from his lap, she silently puts a plate of cheese in its place, 
hoping that instinct will guide his hand aright. The experiment 
succeeds. Gradually, the blocks of white new cheese disappear. 
She removes the plate. No ill consequences follow. Those who 
saw this sight are fixed in the belief, that Mr. Greeley was not 
then, nor has since become, aware, that on that evening he par- 
took of sustenance. 

The reader, perhaps, has concluded that the prodigious sale of 
the Log Cabin did something to relieve our hero from his pecuniary 
embarrassments. Such was not the fact He paid some debts, 



THE CAKE-BASKET. 18rf 

wt he incurred others, and was not, for any week, free from 
anxiety. The price of the paper was low, and its unlooked-for sale 
mvolved the proprietors in expenses which might have been avoid- 
ed, or much lessened, if they had been prepared for it. The mail- 
ing of single numbers cost a hundred dollars. The last number of 
the campaign series, the great " O K" number, the number that 
was all staring with majorities, and capital letters, and points of 
admiration, the number that announced the certain triumph of the 
"Whigs, and carried joy into a thousand Log Cabins, contained a 
most moving "Appeal" to the "Friends who owe us." It was in 
small type, and in a corner remote from the victorious columns. It 
ran thus : — " We were induced in a few instances to depart from 
our general rule, and forward the first series of the Log Cabin 
on credit — having in almost every instance a promise, that the 
money should be sent us before the first of November. That 
time has passed, and we regret to say, that many of those prom- 
ises have not been fulfilled. To those who owe us, therefore, we 
are compelled to say. Friends ! we need our money — our paper- 
maker needs it! and has a right to ask us for it. The low price 
at which we have published it, forbids the idea of gain from this 
paper : we only ask the means of paying what we owe. Once for 
all, we implore you to do us justice, and enable us to do the 
same." This tells the whole story. ISTot a word need be added. 

The Log Cabin was designed only for the campaign, and it was 
expected to expire with the twenty-seventh number. The zealous 
editor, however, desirous of presenting the complete returns of the 
victory, issued an extra number, and sent it gratuitously to all his 
subscribers. This number announced, also, that the Log Cabin 
would be resumed in a few weeks. On the fifth of December the 
now series began, as a family political paper, and continued, with 
moderate success, till both it and the New Yorker were merged in 
the Tribune. 

For his services in the campaign — and no man contributed as 
much to its success as he— Horace Greeley accepted no office ; 
nor did he even witness the inauguration. This is not strange. 
But it is somewhat surprising that the incoming administration had 
not the decency to offer him something. Mr. Fry (W. H.) made a 
speech one evening at a pohtical meeting in Philadelphia. The 



190 THE LOG CABIN. 

next morning, a committee waited upon him to know 1 )r what of- 
fice he intended to become an applicant. " Office ?" said the aston- 
ished composer — " No office." " Why, then," said the committee, 
" what the h — II did you speah last night for V Mr. Greeley had 
not even the honor of a visit from a committee of this kind. 

The Log Cabin, however, gave him an immense reputation in all 
parts of the country, as an able writer and a zealous politician — a 
reputation which soon became more valuable to him than pecuniary 
capital. The Log Cabin of April 3d contained the intelligence of 
General Harrison's death ; and, among a few others, the foUowiug 
advertisement : 

"new toek tribune. 

" On Saturday, the tenth day of April instant, the Subscriber will publish 
the first number of a New Morning Journal of Politics, Literature, and Gen- 
eral Intelligence. 

" The Tribune, as its name imports, will labor to advance the interests of 
the People, and to promote their Moral, Social, and Political well-being. The 
immoral and degrading Police Reports, Advertisements and other matter which 
have been allowed to disgrace the columns of our leading Penny Papers, will 
be carefully excluded from this, and no exertion spared to render it worthy of 
the hearty approval of the virtuous and refined, and a welcome visitant at the 
family fireside. 

" Earnestly believing that the political revolution which has called William 
Henry Harrison to the Chief Magistracy of the Nation was a triumph of 
Right Reason and Public Good over Error and Sinister Ambition, the Tribune 
will give to the New Administration a frank and cordial, but manly and inde 
pendent support, judging it always by its acts, and commending those onl^ 
so far as they shall seem calculated to subserve the great end of all govern 
ment — the welfare of the People. 

" The Tribune will be published every morning on a fair royal sheet — (size 
of the Log-Cabin and Evening Signal) — and transmitted to its city subscribera 
at the low price of one cent per copy. Mail subscribers, $4 per annum. It 
will contain the news by the morning's Southern Mail, which is contained in no 
Other Penny Paper. Subscriptions are respectfully solicited by 

Horace Gheeley, 30 Ann St. 



CHAPTER XV. 

STARTS THE TRIBUNE. 

The Capital— The Daily Press of New York in 1841— The Tribune appears— The Omen« 
unpropitious— The first week— Conspiracy to put down the Tribune— The Tribune 
triumphs— Thomas McElrath— The Tribune alive— Industry of the Editors— Their 
independence— Horace Greeley and John Tyler— The Tribime a Fixed Fact. 

Who furnislied the capital? Horace Greeley. But he was 
scarcely solvent on the day of the Tribune's appearance. True,' 
and yet it is no less the fact that nearly all the large capital required 
for the enterprise was supplied by him. 

A large capital is indispensable for the establishment of a good 
daily paper ; but it need not be a capital of money. It may be a 
capital of reputation, credit, experience, talent, opportunity. Horace 
Greeley was trusted and admired by his party, and by many of the 
party to which he was opposed. In his own circle, he was known 
to be a man of incorruptible integrity — one who would pay his 
debts at any and at every sacrifice — one who was quite incapable of 
contracting an obligation which he was not confident of being able 
to discharge. In other words, his credit was good. He had talent 
and experience. Add to these a thousand dollars lent him by a 
friend, (Dudley S. Gregory,) and the evident need there was of just 
such a paper as the Tribune proved to be, and we have the capital 
upon which the Tribune started. All told, it was equivalent to a 
round fifty thousand dollars. 

In the present year, 1855, there are two hundred and three peri- 
odicals published in the city of New York, of which twelve are 
daily papers. In the year 1841, the number of periodicals was one 
hundred, and the number of daily papers twelve. The Courier and 
Enquirer, New York American, Express, and Commercial Adver- 
tiser were Whig papers, at ten dollars a year. The Evening Post 
and Journal of Commerce, at the same price, leaned to the ' Demo- 
cratic' side of politics, the former avowedly, the latter not. The 



192 ' STARTS THE TRIBUNE. 

Signal, Tatler, and Star were cheap papers, the first two neutral, the 
latter dubious. The Herald, at two cents, was — the Herald ! The 
Sun, a penny paper of immense circulation, was affectedly neutral, 
really ' Democratic,' and very objectionable for the gross character 
of many of its advertisements. A cheap paper, of the Whig school 
of politics, did not exist. On the 10th of April, 1841, the Tribune 
appeared— a paper one-third the size of the present Tribune, price 
one cent; office ISTo. 30 Ann-street; Horace Greeley, editor and 
proprietor, assisted in the department of literary criticism, the fine 
arts, and general intelligence, by H. J. Eaymond. Under its head- 
ing, the new paper bore, as a motto, the dying words of Harrison: 

" I DE8IEE YOU TO UISTJEESTAND THE TRUE PEINOIPLES OF THE GOVERN- 
MENT. I WISH THEM CARRIED OUT. I ASK NOTHINa MORE." 

The omens were not propitious. The appallingly sudden death 
of General Harrison, the President of so many hopes, the first of 
the Presidents who had died in office, had cast a gloom over the 
whole country, and a prophetic doubt over the prospects of the 
"Whig party. 

The editor watched the preparation of his first number ail night, 
nervous and anxious, withdrawing this article and altering that, and 
never leaving the form till he saw it, complete and safe, upon the 
press. The morning dawned sullenly upon the town. " The sleety 
atmosphere," wrote Mr. Greeley, long after, " the leaden sky, the 
unseasonable wintriness, the general gloom of that stormy day, 
which witnessed the grand though mournful pageant whereby our 
city commemorated the blighting of a nation's hopes in the most 
untimely death of President Harrison, were not inaptly miniatured 
in his own prospects and fortunes. Having devoted the seven pre- 
ceding years almost wholly to the establishment of a weekly com- 
pend of literature and intelligence, (The New Yorker,) wherefrom, 
though widely circulated and warmly praised, he had received no 
other return than the experience and wider acquaintance thence 
accruing, he entered upon his novel and most precarious enterprise, 
most slenderly provided with the external means of commanding 
subsistence and success in its prosecution. With no partner or busi- 
ness associate, with inconsidefable pecuniary resources, and only a 
promise from pohtical friends of aid to the extent of two thousand 
dollars, of which but one half was ever realized, (and that long 



THE TRIBUNE APPEARS. 193 

since repaid, but the sense of obligation to the far from wealthy 
friend who made the loan is none the less fresh and ardent,) he un- 
dertook the enterprise — at all times and under any circumstances 
hazardous — of adding one more to the already amply extensive list 
of daily newspapers issued in this emporium, where the current 
expenses of such papers, already appalling, were soon to be doubled 
by rivalry, by stimulated competition, by the progress of business, 
the complication of interests, and especially by the general diffusion 
of the electric telegraph, and where at least nineteen out of every 
twenty attempts to establish a new daily have proved disastrous 
failures. Manifestly, the prospects of success in this case were far 
&om flattering." 

The Tribune began with about six hundred subscribers, procured 
by the exertions of a few of the editor's personal and political 
friends. Five thousand copies of the first number were printed, and 
" we found some diflSculty in giving them away," says Mr. Greeley 
in the article just quoted. The expenses of the first week wero 
five hundred and twenty-five dollars ; the receipts, ninety-two dol- 
lars. A sorry prospect for an editor whose whole cash capital was 
a thousand dollars, and that borrowed. 

But the Tribune was a live paper. Fight was the word with it 
from the start ; Fight has been the word ever since ; Fight is the 
word this day ! If it had been let alone, it would not have died ; its 
superiority both in quantity and the quality of its matter to any other 
of the cheap papers would have prevented that catastrophe ; but its 
progress was amazingly accelerated in the first days of its existence 
by the efforts of an enemy to put it down. That enemy was the 
Sun. 

" The publisher of the Sun," wrote Park Benjamin in the Even- 
ing Signal, " has, during the last few days, got up a conspiracy to 
crush the New York Tribune. The Tribune was, from its incep- 
tion, very successful, and, in many instances, persons in the habit of 
taking the Sun, stopped that paper — wisely preferring a sheet which 
gives twice the amount of reading matter, and always contains 
the latest intelhgence. This fact afforded sufficient evidence to 
Beach, as it did to all others who were cognizant of the circiam- 
stances, that the Tribune would, before the lapse of many weeke, 
supplant the Sun. To prevent this, and, if possible, to destroy the 

9 



J 94 STARTS THE TRIBUNE- 

circulation of the Tribune altogether, an attempt was made to bribe 
the carriers to give up their routes ; fortunately this succeeded only 
in the cases of two men who were likewise carriers of the Sun 
In the next place, all the newsmen were threatened with being de- 
prived of the Sun, if, in any instance, they were found selling th(* 
Tribune. But these efforts were not enough to gratify Beach. He 
instigated boys in his office, or others, to whip the boys engaged 
in selling the Tribune. No sooner was this fact asaertained at the 
sffice of the Tribune, than young men were sent to defend the 
sale of that paper. They had not been on their station long, be- 
fore a boy from the Sun office approached and began to flog the 
lad with the Tribune ; retributory measures were instantly resorted 
to ; but, before a just chastisement was inflicted. Beach himself, 
and a man in his employ, came out to sustain their youthful emis- 
sary. The whole matter will, we understand, be submitted to the 
proper magistrates." 

The public took up the quarrel with great spirit, and this was one 
reason of the Tribune's speedy and striking success. For three 
weeks subscribers poured in at the rate of three hundred a day ! 
It began its fourth week with an .edition of six thousand ; its sev- 
enth week, with eleven thousand, which was the utmost that could 
be printed with its first press. The advertisements increased in 
proportion. The first number contained four columns; the twelfth, 
nine columns ; the hundredth, thirteen columns. Triumph ! tri- 
umph ! nothing but triumph ! New presses capable of printing 
the astounding number of thirty-five hundred copies an hour are 
duly announced. The indulgence of advertisers is besought ' for 
this day only ;' ' to-morrow, their favors shall appear.' The price 
of advertising was raised from four to six cents a line. Letters of 
approval came by every mail. " We have a number of requests," 
said the Editor in an early paragraph, " to blow up all sorts of 
abuses, which shall be attended to as fast as possible." In another, 
he returns his thanks " to the friends of this paper and the princi- 
ples it upholds, for the addition of over a thousand substantial 
names to its subscription list last week." Again : " The Sun is rush- 
ing rapidly to destruction. It has lost even the grovelling sagacity, 
the vulgar sordid instinct with which avarice once gifted it." 
Again : " Everything appears to work well with us. True, wo 



CONSPIRACY TO PUT DOWN THE TRIBUNE. 195 

have cot heard (except through the veracious Sun) from any gen- 
tlemen proposing to give us a $2,500 press ; but if any gentlemen 
have such an intention, and proceed to put it in practice, the pub- 
lic may rest assured that they will not be ashamed of the act, while 
we shall be most eager to proclaim it and acknowledge the kind- 
ness. But even though we wait for such a token of good-will and 
sympathy until the Sun shall cease to be the slimy and venomous 
instrument of. loco-focoism it is, Jesuitical and deadly in politics and 
grovelling in morals — we shall be abundantly sustained and cheered 
by the support we are regularly receiving." Editors wrote in the 
English language in those days. Again : " The Sun of yesterday 
gravely informed its readers that ' It is doubtful whether the Land 
Bill can pass the House.'' The Tribune of the same date contained 
the news of the passage of that very bill !" Triumph ! saucy tri- 
umph ! nothing but triumph ! 

One thing only was wanting to secure the Tribune's brilliant suc- 
cess ; and that was an efficient business partner. Just in the nick 
of time, the needed and predestined man appeared, the man of all 
others for the duty required. On Saturday morning, July 31st, theo- 
following notices appeared under the editorial head on the second 
page : 

The undersigned has great pleasure in announcing to his friends and the 
public that he has formed a copartnership with Thomas McElrath, and 
that The Tribune will hereafter be published by himself and Mr. M. under 
the firm of GREELEY k McELRATH. The principal Editorial charge of 
the paper will still rest with the subscriber ; while the entire business man- 
agement of the concern henceforth devolves upon his partner. This arrange- 
ment, while it relieves the undersigned from a large portion of the labors and 
cares which have pressed heavily upon him for the last four months, assures 
to the paper efficiency and strength in a department where they have hitherto 
been needed; and I cannot be mistaken in the trust that the accession to its 
conduct of a gentleman who has twice been honored with their suffrages for 
an important station, will strengthen The Tribune in the confidence and 
affections of the Whigs of New York. Respectfully, 

July 31st. Horace Greeley. 

The undersigned, in connecting himself with the conduct of a public jour- 
nal, invokes a continuance of that courtesy and good feeling which has been 
extended to him by his fellow-citizens. Having heretofore received evidence 
of kindness and regard from the conductors of the "Whig press of this city, 



196 STARTS THE TRIBUNE. 

and rejoicing in the friendship of most o^ them, it will be his aim in his new 
vocation to justify that kindness and strengthen and increase those friendships. 
His hearty concurrence in the principles, Political and Moral, on which The 
Tribune has thus far been conducted, has been a principal incitement to the 
connection here announced ; and the statement of this fact will preclude the 
necessity of any special declaration of opinions. With gratitude for past 
favors, and an anxious desire to merit a continuance of regard, he remains, 
The Public's humble servant, Thomas McElrath. 

A strict disciplinarian, a close calculator, a man of method and 
order, experienced in business, Mr. McElrath possessed in an emi- 
nent degree the very qualities in which the editor of the Tribune 
was most deficient. Koll Horace Greeley and Thomas McElrath 
into one, and the result would be, a very respectable approximation 
to a Perfect Man. The two, united in partnership, have been able 
to produce a very respectable approximation to a perfect newspa- 
per. As Damon and Pythias are the types of perfect friendship, 
so may Greeley and McElrath be of a perfect partnership ; and one 
may say, with a sigh at the many discordant unions the world pre- 
sents. Oh ! that every Greeley could find his McElrath ! and bless- 
ed is the McElrath that finds his Greeley ! 

Under Mr. McElrath's direction, order and efficiency were soon 
introduced into the business departments of the Tribune office. It 
became, and has ever since been, one of the best-conducted news- 
paper establishments in the world. Early in the fall, the T^ew 
Yorker and Log Cabin were merged into the "Weekly Tribune, the 
first number of which appeared on the 20th of September. Tho 
concern, thus consolidated, knew, thenceforth, nothing but prosper- 
ity. The New Yorker had existed seven years and a half; the Log 
Cabin, eighteen months. 

The Tribune, I repeat, was a live paper. It was, also, a variously 
interesting one. Its selections, which in the early volumes occupied 
several columns daily, were of high character. It gave the philos- 
ophers of the Dial an ample hearing, and many an appreciating 
notice. It made liberal extracts from Carlyle, Cousin, and others, 
whose works contained the spirit of the New Time. The eighth 
number gave fifteen songs from a new volume of Thomas Moore. 
Barnaby Kudge was published entire in the first volume. Mr. Ray- 
mond's notices of new books were a conspicuous and interesting fea- 



ITS INDEPENDENCE. 197 

tnre. Still more so, were his clear and able sketches and reports of 
public lectures. In November, the Tribune gave a fair and cour- 
teous report of the Millerite Convention. Aboui; the same time, Mr. 
Greeley himself reported the celebrated McCleod trial at Utica, 
sending on from four to nine columns a day. 

Amazing was the industry of the editors. Single numbers of the 
Tribune contained eighty editorial paragraphs. Mr. Greeley's aver- 
age day's work was three columns, equal to fifteen pages of foolscap : 
and the mere writing which an editor does, is not half his daily 
labor. In May, appeared a series of articles on Retrenchment and 
Reform in the City Government, a subject upon which the Tribune 
has since shed a considerable number of barrels of ink. In the 
same month, it disturbed a hornet's nest by saying, that " the whole 
moral atmosphere of the Theatre, as it actually exists among us, is 
in our judgment unwholesome, and therefore, while we do not pro- 
pose to war upon it, we seek no alliance with it, and cannot con- 
scientiously urge our readers to visit it, as would be expected if 
we were to solicit and profit by its advertising patronage." 

Down came all the hornets of the press. The Sun had the eflTront- 
ery to assert, in reply, that "most of the illegitimate births in New 
York owe their origin to acquaintances formed at 'Evening 
Churches,' and that 'Class-meetings' have done more to people the 
House of Refuge than twenty times the number of theatres." This 
discussion might have been turned to great advantage by the 
Tribune, if it had not, with obstinate honesty, given the re- 
ligious world a rebuff by asserting its right to advertise heretical 
books. 

" As to our friend," said the Tribune, " who complains of the 
advertising of certain Theological works which do not square with 
his opinions, we must tell him plainly that he is unreasonable. No 
other paper that we ever heard of establishes any test of the Or- 
thodoxy of works advertised in its columns; even the Commercial 
Advertiser and Journal of Commerce advertise for the very sect 
proscribed by him. If one were to attempt a discrimination, where 
would he end ? One man considers Universalisra immoral ; but 
another is equally positive that Arminianism is so ; while a third 
holds the same bad opinion of Calvinism. Who shall decide be- 
tween them ? Certainly not the Editor of a daily newspaper, un 



198 • STARTS THE TRIBUNE. 

less lift prints it avowedly under the patronage of a particular sect. 
Our friend inquires whether we should advertise intidel books also 
We answer, that if any one should offer an advertisement of lewd, 
ribald, indecent, blasphemous or law-prohibited books, we should 
claim the right to reject it. But a work no otherwise objection- 
able than as controverting the Christian record and doctrine, would 
not be objected to by us. True Christianity neither fears refutation 
nor dreads discussion — or, as Jefferson has forcibly said, ' Error 
of opinion may be tolerated where Eeason is left free to combat 
it.'" 

In politics, the Tribune was strongly, yet not blindly whig. It 
appealed, in its first number, to the whig party for support. The 
same number expressed the decided opinion, that Mr. Tyler would 
prove to be, as president, all that the whigs desired, and that 
opinion the Tribune was one of the last to yield. In September 
it justified Daniel Webster in retaining office, after the 'treachery' 
of Tyler was manifest, and when all his colleagues had resigned in 
disgust. It justified him on the ground that he could best bring to 
a conclusion the Ashburton negotiations. This defence of Web- 
ster was deeply offensive to the more violent whigs, and it remain- 
ed a pretext of attack on the Tribune for several years. With 
regard to his course in the Tyler controversy, Mr. Greeley wrote 
in 1845 a long explanation, of which the material passage was as 
follows: — "In December, 1841, I visited Washington upon assur- 
ances that John Tyler and his advisers were disposed to return to 
the Whig party, and that I could be of service in bringing about a 
complete reconciliation between the Administration and the Whigs 
in Congress and in the country. I never proposed to 'connect 
myself with the cause of the Administration,' but upon the under- 
standing that it should be heartily and faithfully a Whig Adminis- 
tration. * * Finally, I declined utterly and absolutely, to ' con- 
nect myself with the cause of the Administration' the moment I 
became satisfied, as I did during that visit, that the Chief of the 
Government did not desire a reconciliation, upon the basis of sus- 
taining Whig principles and Whig measures, with the party he 
had so deeply wronged, but was treacherously coqueting with Lo- 
co-Focoism, and fooled with the idea of a re-election." 

Against Eepudiation, then an exciting topic, the Tribune went 



THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. 19y 

dead in many a telling article. In behalf of Protection to Ameri- 
can Industry, the editor wrote columns upon columns. 

In a word, the Tribune was equal to its opportunity; it lived 
up to its privileges. In every department it steadily and strikingly 
improved throughout the year. It began its second year with 
twelve thousand subscribers, and a daily average of thirteen col- 
umns of advertisements. The Tribune was a Eixed Fact. 

The history of a daily paper is the history of the world. It is 
obviously impossible in the compass of a work like this to give 
anything like a complete history of the Tribune. For that pur- 
pose ten octavo volumes would be required, and most interesting 
volumes they would be. All that I can do is to select the leading 
events of its history which were most intimately connected with 
the history of its editor, and dwell with some minuteness upon 
them, connecting them together only by a slender thread of nar- 
rative, and omitting even to mention many things of real interest. 
li will be convenient, too, to group together in separate chapters 
events similar in their nature, but far removed from one another 
in the time of their occurrence. Indeed, I am overwhelmed with 
the mass of materials, and must struggle out as best I can. 

A great book is a great evil, says the Greek Keader. This book 
was fore-ordained to be a small one. 



CHAPTER XYI. 

THE TEIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. 

What made Horace Greeley a Socialist— The hard winter of 1838— Albert Brisbane- 
Tbe subject broached — Series of articles by Mr. Brisbane begun — Thair effect — Cry 
of Mad Dog— Discussion between Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond— How it 
arose— Abstract of it in a conversational form. 

The editor of the Tribune was a Socialist years before the Tri- 
bune came into existence. 
The winter of 1838 was unusually severe. Tlie times were hard, 



200 THE TRIBUNE AND.FOURIERISM. 

fuel and food were dear, many thousands of men and women were 
out of employment, and there was general distress. As the cold 
months wore slowly on, the sufferings of the poor became so aggra- 
vated, and the number of the unemployed increased to such a de- 
gree, that the ordinary means were inadequate to relieve even those 
who were destitute of every one of the necessaries of life. Some 
died of starvation. Some were frozen to death. Many, through 
exposure and privation, contracted fatal diseases. A large number, 
who had never before known want, were reduced to beg. Ee- 
spectable mechanics were known to offer their services as waiters 
in eating-houses for their food only. There never had been such a 
time of suffering in New York before, and there has not been since. 
Extraordinary measures were taken by the comfortable classes to 
alleviate the sufferings of their unfortunate fellow-citizens. Meet- 
ings were held, subscriptions were made, committees were appoint- 
ed ; and upon one of the committees Horace Greeley was named to 
serve, and did serve, faithfully and laboriously, for many weeks. 
The district which his committee had in charge was the Sixth "Ward, 
the ' bloody' Sixth, the squalid, poverty-stricken Sixth, the pool into 
which all that is worst in this metropolis has a tendency to reel and 
slide. It was his task, and that of his colleagues, to see that no one 
froze or starved in that forlorn and polluted region. More than this 
they could not do, for the subscriptions, liberal as they were, were 
not more than sufficient to relieve actual and pressing distress. In 
the better parts of the Sixth "Ward a large number of mechanics 
lived, whose cry was, not for the bread and the fuel of charity, but 
for Work ! Charity their honest souls disdained.' Its food choked 
them, its fire chilled them. Work, give us work ! was their eager, 
passionate demand. 

All this Horace Greeley heard and saw. He was a young man — 
not quite twenty-six — compassionate to weakness, generous to a 
fault. He had known what it was to beg for work, from shop to 
shop, from town to town ; and, that very winter, he was struggling 
with debt, at no safe distance from bankruptcy. WJiy must these 
things be ? Are they inevitable ? Will they always be inevitable ? 
Is it in human wisdom to devise a remedy? in human virtue to ap- 
ply it ? Can the beneficent God have designed this, who, with such 
wonderful nrofusion, has provided for the wants, tastes, and luxuries 



ALBERT BRISBANE. 201 

of all bis creatures, and for a linndred times as many creatures as 
yet have lived at the same time ? Such questions Horace Greeley 
pondered, in silence, in the depths of his heart, during that winter 
of misery. 

From Paris came soon the calm, emphatic answer, These things 
need not be ! They are due alone to the short-sightedness and in- 
justice of man ! Albert Brisbane brought the message. Horace 
Greeley heard and believed it. He took it to his heart. It became 
a part of him. 

Albert Brisbane was a young gentleman of liberal education, the 
son of wealthy parents. His European tour included, of course, a 
residence at Paris, where the fascinating dreams of Pourier were 
the subject of conversation. He procured the works of that ami- 
able and noble-minded man, read them with eager interest, and be- 
came completely convinced that his captivating theories were capa- 
ble of speedy realization — not, perhaps, in slow and conservative 
Europe, but in progressive and unshackled America. He returned 
home a Pourierite, and devoted himself with a zeal and disinterest- 
edness that are rare in the class to which he belonged, and that in 
any class, cannot be too highly praised, to the dissemination of the 
doctrines in which he believed. He wrote essays and pamphlets. 
He expounded Pourierism in conversation. He started a magazine 
called the Puture, devoted to the explanation of Pourier's plans, 
published by Greeley & Co. He delivered lectures. In short, he 
did all that a man could do to make known to his fellow men what 
he believed it became them to know. He made a few converts, 
but only a few, tiU the starting of the Tribune gave him access to 
the public ear. 

Horace Greeley made no secret of his conversion to Pourierism. 
On the contrary, he avowed it constantly in private, and occasion- 
ally in public print, though never in his own paper till towards the 
CQd of the Tribune's first year. His native sagacity taught him that 
before Pourierism could be realized, a complete revolution in pub- 
lic sentiment must be effected, a revolution which would require 
many years of patient effort on the part of its advocates. 

The first mention of Mr. Brisbane and Pourierism in the Tribune, 
appeared October 21st, 1841. It was merely a notice of one of 
Mr. Brisbane's lectures : 

* 0* 



202 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. 

" Mr. A. Brisbane delivered a lecture at the Stuyvesant Institute last evening 
upon the Genius of Christianity considered in its bearing on the Social Insti- 
tutions and Terrestrial Destiny of the Human Race. He contended that the 
mission of Christianity upon earth has hitherto been imperfectly understood, 
and that the doctrines of Christ, carried into practical effect, would free the 
world of Want, Misery, Temptation and Crime. This, Mr. B. believes, will be 
effected by a system of Association, or the binding up of indiridual and fam- 
ily interests in Social and Industrial Communities, wherein all faculties may 
be developed, all energies usefully employed, all legitimate desires satisfied, 
and idleness, want, temptation and crime be annihilated. In such Associa- 
tions, individual property will be maintained, the family be held sacred, and 
every inducement held out to a proper ambition. Mr. B. will lecture hereafter 
on the practical details of the system of Fourier, of whom he is a zealous dis- 
ciple, and we shall then endeavor to give a more clear and full account of hia 
doctrines." 

A month later, the Tribune copied a flippant and sneering arti- 
cle from the London Times, on the subject of Fourierism in France. 
In his introductory remarks the editor said : 

" "We have written something, and shall yet write much more, in illustra- 
tion and advocacy of the great Social revolution which our age is destined to 
commence, in rendering all useful Labor at once attractive and honorable, 
and banishing "Want and all consequent degradation from the globe. The 
germ of this revolution is developed in the writings of Charles Fourier, a phil- 
anthropic and observing Frenchman, who died in 1837, after devoting thirty 
years of a studious and unobtrusive life to inquiries, at once patient and pro- 
found, into the causes of the great mass of Social evils which overwhelm Hu- 
manity, and the true means of removing them. These means he proves to be 
a system of Industrial and Household Association, on the principle of Joint 
Stock Investment, whereby Labor will be ennobled and rendered attractive 
and universal. Capital be offered a secure and lucrative investment, and Tal- 
ent and Industry find appropriate, constant employment, and adequate re- 
ward, while Plenty, Comfort, and the best means of Intellectual and Moral 
Improvement is guaranteed to all, reggirdless of former acquirements or con- 
dition. This grand, benignant plan is fully developed in the various works 
of M. Fourier, which are abridged in the single volume on ' The Social Des- 
tiny of Man,' by Mr. A. Brisbane, of this State. Some fifteen or sixteen other 
works in illustration and defense of the system have been given to the world, 
by Considerant, Chevalier, Paget, and other French writers, and by Hugh Do- 
herty, Dr. H. McCormack, and others in English. A tri- weekly journal (' La 
Phalange') devoted to the system, is published by M. Victor Considerant in 



SERIES OF ARTICLES BY MR. BRISBANE BEGUN. 203 

Paris, and another (the 'London Phalanx') by Hugh Doherty, in London, 
sach ably edited." 

Early in 1842, a number of gentlemen associated themselves to- 
gether for the purpose of bringing the schemes of Fourier fully and 
prominently before the public ; and to this end, they purchased the 
right to occupy one column daily on the first page of the Tribune 
with an article, or articles, on the subject, from the pen of Mr. 
Brisbane. The first of these articles appeared on the first of March, 
1842, and continued, with some interruptions, at first daily, after- 
wards three times a week, till about the middle of 1844, when Mr. 
Brisbane went again to Europe. The articles were signed with the 
letter B, and were known to be communicated. They were calm 
in tone, clear in exposition. At first, they seem to have attracted 
little attention, and less opposition. They were regarded (as far as 
my youthful recollection serves) in the light of articles to be skip- 
ped, and by most of the city readers of the Tribune, I presume, 
they were skipped with the utmost regularity, and quite as a matter 
of course. Occasionally, however, the subject was alluded to edi- 
torially, and every such allusion was of a nature to be read. Grad- 
ually, Fourierism became one of the topics of the time. Gradually 
certain editors discovered that Fourierism was unchristian. Grad- 
ually, the cry of Mad Dog arose. Meanwhile, the articles of Mr. 
Brisbane were having their eflfect upon the People. 

In May, 1843, Mr. Greeley wrote, and with perfect truth : 

" The Doctrine of Association is spreading throughout the country with a 
rapidity which we did not anticipate, and of which we had but little hope. 
Wft receive papers from nearly all parts of the Northern and Western States, 
and some from the South, containing articles upon Association, in which gen- 
erj»l views and outlines of the System are given. They speak of the subject 
as one ' which is calling public attention,' or, ' about which so much is now 
said,' or, 'which is a good deal spoken of in this part of the country,' &c., 
showing that our Principles are becoming a topic of public discussion. From 
the rapid progress of our Doctrines during the past year, we look forward 
with hope to their rapid continued dissemination. We feel perfectly confident 
that never, in the history of the world, has a philosophical doctrine, or the plan 
of a great reform, spread with the rapidity which the Doctrine of Association 
has spread in the United States for the last year or two. There are now a 
large number of papers, and quite a number of lecturers in various parts of 



204 THE TRIBUNE AND ^OURIERISM. 

the country, who are lending their eflForts to the cause, so that the onward 
movement must be greatly accelerated. 

"Small Associations are springing up rapidly in various parts of the coun- 
try. The Sylvania Association in Pike country, Pa., is now in operation j 
about seventy persons are on the domain, erecting buildings, «S;c., and prepar- 
ing for the reception of other members. 

" An Association has been organized in Jefferson county. Our friend, A. 
Jkl. Watson, is at the head of it; he has been engaged for the last three years 
in spreading the principles in that part of the State, and the result is the 
formation of an Association. Several farmers have put in their farms and 
taken stock ; by this means the Domain has been obtained. About three 
hundred persons, we are informed, are on the lands. They have a. very fine 
quarry on their Domain, and they intend, among the branches of Industry 
which they will pursue, to take contracts for erecting buildings out of the 
Association. They are now erecting a banking-house in Watertown, near 
which the Association is located. 

" Efforts are making in various parts of this State, in Vermont, in Penn- 
sylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, to establish Associations, which will probably 
be successful in the course of the present year. We have heard of the«e 
movements; there may be others of which we are not informed." 

About the same time, be gave a box on the ear to the editors who 
wrote of Fourierism in a hostile spirit : — " The kindness of our friends 
of the New York Express, Eochester Evening Post, and sundry 
other Journals which appear inclined to wage a personal controversy 
with us respecting Fourierism, (the Express without knowing how to 
spell the word,) is duly appreciated. Had we time and room for 
disputation on that subject, we would prefer opponents who would 
not be compelled to confess frankly or betray clearly their utter 
ignorance of the matter, whatever might be their manifestations of 
personal pique or malevolence in unfair representations of the little 
they do understand. We counsel our too beUigerent friends to pos- 
sess their souls in patience, and not be too eager to rival the for- 
tune of him whose essay proving that steamships could not cross 
the Atlantic happened to reach us in the first steamship that did 
cross it. ' The proof of the pudding ' is not found in wrangling 
about it." 

"We also find, occasionally, a paragraph in the Tribune like this : 
" T. W. "Whitley and H. Greeley will address such citizens of ISTew- 
ark as choose to hear them on the subject of 'Association' at 7| 



DIS.CUSSION BETWEEN H. GREELEY AND H. J. RAYMOND. 205 

o'clock this evening at the Relief Hall, rear of J. M. Qiiimby's Re- 
pository." 

Too fast. Too fast. I need not detail the progress of Fourier- 
ism — the many attempts made to establish Associations — the failure 
of all of them but one, which still exists — the ruin that ensued to 
many worthy men — the ridicule with which the Associationists were 
assailed — the odium excited in many minds against the Tribune — 
the final relinquishment of the subject. All this is perfectly well 
known to the people of this country. 

Let us come, at once, to the grand climax of the Tribune's Fou- 
rierism, the famous discussion of the subject between Horace Gree- 
ley and H. J. Raymond, of the Courier and Enquirer, in the year 
1846. That discussion finished Fourierism in the United States. 

Mr. Raymond had left the Tribune, and joined the Courier and 
Enquirer, at the solicitation of Col. Webb, the editor of the latter. 
It was a pity the Tribune let him go, for he is a born journalist, and 
could have helped the Tribune to attain the position of the great, 
only, undisputed Metropolitan Journal, many years- sooner than it 
will. Horace Greeley is not a born journalist. He is too much in 
earnest to be a perfect editor. He has too many opinions and pref- 
erences. He is a boen legislator, a Deviser of Remedies, a Sug- 
gester of Expedients, a Framer of Measures. The most successful 
editor is he whose great endeavor it is to tell the public all it wants 
to Tcnow, and whose comments on passing events best express the 
feeling of the country with regard to them. Mr. Raymond is 
not a man of first-rate talent — great talent would be in his way — 
he is most interesting when he attacks ; and of the varieties of 
composition, polished vituperation is not the most difficult. But 
he has the right notion of editing a daily paper, and when the Tri- 
bune lost him, it lost more than it had the shghtest idea of— as 
events have since shown. 

However, Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond, the one nat- 
urally liberal, the other naturally conservative — the one a Universal- 
ist, the other a Presbyterian — the one regarding the world as a 
place to be made better by living in it, the other regarding it as 
an oyster to be opened, and bent on opening it — would have found 
it hard to work together on equal terms. They separated amicably, 
and each went his way. The discussion of Fourierism arose thus ; 



206 THE TRIBUNE AND J^OURIERISM. 

Mr. Brisbane, on his return from Europe, renewed the agitation 
of his subject. The Tribune of August 19th, 1846, contained a 
letter by him, addressed to the editors of the Courier and Enquirer, 
proposing several questions, to which answers were requested, 
respecting Social Eeform. The Courier rephed. The Tribune re- 
joined editorially, and was answered in turn by the Courier. Mr. 
Brisbane addressed a second letter to the Courier, and sent it 
direct to the editor of that paper in manuscript. The Courier 
agreed to publish it, if the Tribune would give place to its repl}^ 
The Tribune declined doing so, but challenged the editor of the 
Courier to a public discussion of the whole subject. 

"Though we cannot now," wrote Mr. Greeley, "open our col- 
umns to a set discussion by others of social questions (which may 
or may not refer mainly to points deemed relevant by us), we readily 
close with the spirit of the Courier's proposition. * * As soon 
as the State election is fairly over — say Nov. 10th — we will pub- 
lish an entire article, filling a column of the Tribune, very nearly, 
in favor of Association as we understand it ; and, upon the Courier 
copying this and replying, we will give place to its reply, and re- 
spond ; and so on, till each party shall have published twelve articles 
on its own side, and twelve on the other, which shall fulfil the 
terms of this agreement. All the twelve articles of each party 
shall be published without abridgment or variation in the Daily, 
Weekly, and Semi-weekly editions of both papers. Afterward each 
party will, of course, be at liberty to comment at pleasure in his 
own columns. In order that neither paper shall be crowded with 
this discussion, one article per week, only, on either side, shall be 
published, unless the Courier shall prefer greater dispatch. Is not 
this a £air proposition ? "What says the Courier ? It has, of course, 
the advantage of the defensive position and of the last word." 

The Courier said, after much toying and dallying, and a pre- 
liminary skirmish of paragraphs. Come on! and, on the 20th of 
TSTovember, the Tribune came on. The debate lasted six months. 
It was conducted on both sides with spirit and ability, and it at- 
tracted much attention. The twenty-four articles, of which it con- 
sisted, were afterwards published by the Harpers in a pamphlet of 
eighty -three closely -printed, double-columned pages, which had a 
considerable Bale, and has long been out of print. On one side 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCtTSSION. 207 

we see earnestness and sincerity; on the other tact and skill 
One strove to convince, the other to triumph. The thread of ar- 
gument is often lost in a maze of irrelevancy. The subject, in- 
deed, was peculiarly ill calculated for a public discussion. "When 
men converse on a scheme which has for its object the good of 
mankind, let them confer in awful whispers — apart, like conspir- 
ators ; not distract themselves in dispute in the hearing of a nation ; 
for they who would benefit mankind must do it either by stealth 
or by violence. 

I have tried to condense this tremendous pamphlet into the form 
and brevity of a conversation, with the following result. Neither 
of the speakers, however, are to be held responsible for the language 
employed. 

Horace Ch^eeley. JSfov. 20th. The earth, the air, the waters, the 
sunshine, with their natural products, were divinely intended and 
appointed for the sustenance and enjoyment of the whole human 
family. But the present /aci is, that a very large majority of man- 
kind are landless ; and, by law, the landless have no inherent right 
to stand on a single square foot of their native State, except in the 
highways. Perishing with cold, they have no legal right to a stick 
of decaying fuel in the most unfrequented morass. Famishing, they 
have no legal right to pluck and eat the bitterest acorn in the depths 
of the remotest forest. But the Past cannot be recalled. "What 
has been done, has been done. The legal rights of individuals must 
be held sacred. But those whom society has divested of their natu- 
ral right to a share in the soil, are entitled to Compensation^ i. e. to 
continuous opportunity to earn a subsistence by Labor. To own 
land is to possess this opportunity. The majority own no land. 
Therefore the minority, who own legally all the land, which natu- 
rally belongs to all men alike, are bound to secure to the landless 
majority a compensating security of remunerating Labor. But, as 
society is now organized, this is not, and cannot be, done. " Work, 
work ! give us something to do! anything that will secure us hon- 
est bread," is at this moment the prayer of not less than thirty 
thousand human beings within the sound of the City-Hall bell. 
Here is an enormous waste and loss. We must devise a remedy 
and that remedy, I propose to show, is found in Association. 



208 THE TRIBtTNE AND*FOURIERISMi 

E. J. Raymond. Nov. 23cZ. Heavens ! Here we have one of the 
leading Whig presses of New York advocating the doctrine that no 
man can rightfidly oicn land ! Fanny Wright was of that opinion. 
The doctrine is erroneous and dangerous. If a man cannot right- 
fully own land, he cannot rightfully own anything which the land 
produces ; that is, he cannot rightfully own anything at all The 
blessed institution of property, the basis of the social fabric, from 
which arts, agriculture, commerce, civilization spring, and without 
which they could not exist, is threatened with destruction, and by 
a leading Whig paper too. Conservative Powers, preserve us ! 

Horace Greeley. JSfov. 2Qth. Fudge! What I said was this: So- 
ciety, having divested the majority of any right to the soil, is bound 
to compensate them by guaranteeing to each an opportunity of earn- 
ing a subsistence by Labor. Your vulgar, clap-trap allusion to Fan- 
ny Wright does not surprise me. I shall neither desert nor deny a 
truth because she, or any one else, has proclaimed it. But to pro- 
ceed. By association I mean a Social Order, which shall take the 
place of the present Township, to be composed of some hundreds 
or some thousands of persons, who shall be united together in inter- 
est and industry for the purpose of securing to each individual the 
following things : 1, an elegant and commodious house ; 2, an edu- 
cation, complete and thorough ; 3, a secure subsistence ; 4, oppor- 
tunity to labor ; 5, fair wages ; 6, agreeable social relations ; 7, prog- 
ress in knowledge and skill. As society is at present organized, 
these are the portion of a very small minority. But by association 
of capital and industry, they might become the lot of all ; inasmuch 
as association tends to Economy in all departments, economy in 
lands, fences, fuel, household labor, tools, education, medicine, legal 
advice, and commercial exchanges. My opponent will please ob- 
serve that his article is three times as long as mine, and devoted in 
good part to telling the public that the Tribune is an exceedingly 
mischievous paper ; which is an imposition. 

H. J. Raymond. N'ov. SOth. A home, fair wages, education, etc., 
are very desirable, we admit ; and it is the unceasing aim of all good 
men in society, as it now exists, to place those blessings within the 
reach of all. The Tribune's claim that it can be accomplished only 
by assoeiation is only a claim. Substantiate it. Give us proof ot 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 209 

its efficacy. Tell us in whom the property is to be vested, how 
labor is to be remunerated, what share capital is to have in the con- 
cern, by what device men are to be induced to labor, how moral 
offences are to be excluded or punished. Then we may be able to 
discuss the subject. Nothing was stipulated about the length of the 
articles ; and we do think the Tribune a mischievous paper. 

Horace Chreeley. Dec. 1st. The property of an association will 
be vested in those who contributed the capital to establish it, repre- 
sented by shares of stock, just as the property of a bank, factory, or 
railroad now is. Labor, skill and talent, will be remunerated by a 
fixed proportion of their products, or of its proceeds, if sold. Men 
will be induced to labor by a knowledge that its rewards will be a 
certain and major proportion of the product, which of course will 
be less or more according to the skill and industry of each individ- 
ual. The slave has no motive to diligence except fear ; the hireling 
is tempted to eye-service ; the solitary worker for himself is apt to 
become disheartened ; but men working for themselves, in groups, 
will find labor not less attractive than profitable. Moral offences 
will be punished by legal enactment, and they will be rendered un 
frequent by plenty and education. 

H. J. Raymond. Dec. %th. Oh — then the men of capital are to 
own the land, are they? Let us see. A man with money enough 
may buy an entire domain of five thousand acres ; men without 
money will cultivate it on condition of receiving a fixed proportion 
of its products ; the major part, says the Tribune ; suppose we say 
three-fourths. Then the contract is simply this: — One rich man 
{or company) owns Jive thousand acres of land, which he leases forever 
to two thousand poor men at the yearly rent of one-fourth of its 
2)roducts. It is an affair of landlord and tenant — the lease perpet- 
ual, payment in kind; and the landlord to own the cattle, tools, 
and furniture of the tenant, as well as the land. Association, then, 
is merely a plan for extending the relation of landlord and tenant 
over the whole arable surface of the earth. 

Horace Oreeley. Dec. 10th. By no means. The capital of a 
mature association would be, perhaps, half a million of dollars ; it 



210 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. 

an infant assoo'ation, fifty thousand dollars ; and this increase of 
value would be both created and owned by Labor. In an ordinary 
township, however, the increase, though all created by Labor, is 
chiefly owned by Capital. The majority of the inhabitants remain 
poor ; while a few— merchants, land-owners, mill-owners, and manu- 
facturers — are epriched. That this is the fact in recently-settled 
townships, is undeniable. That it would not be the fact in a town- 
ship settled and cultivated on the principle of association, seems to 
me equally so. 

B^. J. Raymond. Dec liith. But not to me. Suppose fifty men 
furnish fifty thousand dollars for an association upon which a hun- 
dred and fifty others are to labor and to live. With that sum they 
buy the land, build the houses, and procure everything needful for 
the start. The capitalists, bear in mind, are the absolute owners of 
the entire property of the association. In twenty years, that prop- 
erty may be worth half a million, and it still remains the property 
of the capitalists, the laborers having annually drawn their share of 
the products. They may have saved a portion of their annual 
share, and thus have accumulated property ; but they have no more 
title to the domain than they had at first. If the concern should 
not prosper, the laborers could not buy shares ; if it should, the 
capitalists would not sell except at their increased value. "What 
advantage, then, does association offer for the poor man's acquiring 
property superior to that afibrded by the present state of things ? 
None, that we can see. On the contrary, the more rapidly the 
domain of an, association should increase in value, the more diflScult 
it would be for the laboring man to rise to the class of proprietors ; 
and this would simply be an aggravation of the worst features of 
the social system. And £ow you assooiationists icould quarrel ! The 
skillful would be ever grumbling at the awkward, and the lazy would 
shirk their share of the work, but clamor for their share of the 
product. There would be ten occasions for bickerings where now 
there is one. The fancies of the associationist, in fact, are as base- 
less, though not as beautiful, as More's Utopia, or the Happy Yalley 
of Rasselas. 

Horace Greeley. Dec. IQth. 'Eo^Sirf In association, those who 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 211 

furnisli the original capital are the owners merely of so much stoch 
in the concern — not of all the land and other property, as you repre- 
sent. Suppose that capital to be fifty thousand dollars. At the end 
of the first year it is found that twenty-five thousand dollars have 
been added to the value of the property by Labor. For this amount 
new stock is issued, which is apportioned to Capital, Labor and Skill 
as impartial justice shall dictate — to the non-resident capitalist a 
certain proportion ; to the working capitalist the same proportion, 
plus the excess of his earnings over his expenses ; to the laborer 
that excess only. The apportionment is repeated every year ; and 
the proportion of the new stock assigned to Capital is such that 
when the property of the association is worth half a million. Capi- 
tal will own about one-fifth of it. With regard to the practical 
working of association, I point yoTi to the fact that association and 
civilization are one. They advance and recede together. In this 
age we have large steamboats, monster hotels, insurance, partner- 
ships, joint stock companies, public schools, libraries, police. Odd 
Fellowship — all of which are exemplifications of the idea upon 
which association is based ; all of which work well as institutions, 
and are productive of incalculable benefits to mankind. 



H. J. Raymond. Dec. %^th. Of course; — but association as- 
sumes to shape and govern the details of social Ufe^ which is a very 
different affair. One ' growp^ it appears, is to do all the cooking, 
another the gardening, another the ploughing. But suppose that 
some who want to be cooks are enrolled in the gardening group. 
They will naturally sneer at the dishes cooked by their rivals, per- 
haps form a party for the expulsion of the cooks, and so bring about 
a kitchen war. Then, who will consent to be a member of the 
boot-blacking, ditch-digging and sink-cleaning groups? Such labors 
must be done, and groups must be detailed to do them. Then, who 
is to settle the wages question ? Who is to determine upon the com- 
paratwe efficiency of each laborer, and settle the comparative value 
of his work ? There is the religious difficulty too, and the educa- 
tional difficulty, the medical difficulty, and numberless other diffi- 
culties, arising from differences of opinion, so radical and so earnest- 
ly entertained as to preclude the possibility of a large number of 



212 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM, 

persons living together in the intimate relation contemplated by- 
association. 

Hor<7ce Greeley. Dec. 1'^th. IlTot so fast. After the first steam- 
ship ha.d crossed the Atlantic all the demonstrations of the impos- 
sibility of that fact fell to the ground. Now, with regard to as 
sociations, the Jirst steamship has crossed/ The communities of 
Zoar and Eapp have existed from twenty to forty years, and several 
associations of the kind advocated by me have survived from two 
to five years, not only without being broken up by the difficulties 
alluded to, but without their presenting themselves in the light of 
difficulties at all. ISTo inter-kitchen war has disturbed their peace, 
no religious differences have marred their harmony, and men have 
been found willing to perform ungrateful offices, required by the 
general good. Passing over your objections, therefore, I beg you 
to consider the enormous difficulties, the wrongs, the waste, the mis- 
ery, occasioned by and inseparable from society as it is now organ- 
ized. For example, the coming on of winter contracts business and 
throws thousands out of employment. They and their families suf- 
fer, the dealers who supply them are losers in custom, the alms- 
house is crowded, private charity is taxed to the extreme, many die 
of diseases induced by destitution, some are driven by despair to 
intoxication ; and all this, while every ox and horse is well fed and 
cared for, while there is inaccessible plenty all around, while capi- 
tal is luxuriating on the products of the very labor which is now pal- 
sied and sufiering. Under the present system, capitaHs everything, 
man nothing, except as a means of accumulating capital. Capital 
founds a factory, and for the single purpose of increasing capital, 
taking no thought of the human beings by whom it is increased. 
The fundamental ideas of association, on the other hand, is to effect 
a just distribution of products among capital, talent and labor. 

ff. J. Raymond. Jan. 6th. The idea may be good enough ; 
but the means are impracticable ; the details are absurd, if not in- 
humane and impious. The Tribune's admission, that an association 
of indolent or covetous persons could not endure icithout a moral 
transformation of its memb&rs.^ seems to us fatal to the whole theory 
of association. It implies that individual reform must precede so- 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 213 

cial reform, which is precisely our position. But how is individual 
reform to be effected ? By association^ says the Tribune. That is, 
the motion of the water-wheel is to produce the water by which 
alone it can be set in motion — the action of the watch is to pro- 
duce the main-spring without which it cannot move. Absurd, 

Horace Ch^eeley. Jan. ISi^A. Incorrigible mis-stater of my posi- 
tions ! I am as well aware as you are that the mass of the igno- 
rant and destitute are, at present, incapable of so much as under- 
standing the social order I propose, much less of becoming efficient 
members of an association. What I say is, let those who are capa- 
ble of understanding and promoting it, l)egin the work, found asso- 
ciations, and show the rest of mankind how to live and thrive in 
harmonious industry. Yqu tell me that the sole efficient agency of 
Social Reform is Christianity. I answer that association is Chris- 
tianity ; and the dislocation now existing between capital and labor, 
between the capitalist and the laborer, is as atheistic as it is in- 
human. 

E. J. Raymond. Jan. 20th. Stop a moment. The test of true 
benevolence is practice, not preaching ; and we have no hesitation 
in saying that the members of any one of our city churches do 
more every year for the practical relief of poverty and suffering 
than any phalanx that ever existed. There are in our midst hun- 
dreds of female sewing societies, each of which clothes more naked- 
ness and feeds more hunger, than any ' association ' that ever was 
formed. There is a single individual in this city whom the Tribune 
has vilified as a selfish, grasping despiser of the poor, who has ex- 
pended more money in providing the poor with food, clothing, edu- 
cuation, sound instruction in morals and religion, than all the advo- 
cates of association in half a century. While association has been 
theorizing about starvation, Christianity has been preventing it. 
Associationists tell us, that giving to the poor deepens the evil 
which it aims to relieve, and that the bounty of the benevolent, as 
society is now organized, is very often abused. We assure them, it 
is not the social system which abuses the bounty of the benevolent ; 
it is simply the dishonesty and indolence of individuals, and they 
would do the same under any system, and especially in association. 



214 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. 

Horace Greeley. Jan. 29th. Private benevolence is good and 
necessary ; the Tribune has ever been its cordial and earnest ad- 
vocate. But benevolence relieves only the effects of poverty, while 
A^ssociation proposes to reach and finally eradicate its causes. The 
charitable are doing nobly this winter for the re"^ief of the destitute ; 
but will there be in this city next winter fewer objects of charity 
than there are now ? And let me tell you, sir, if you do not know 
it already, that the advocates of association, in proportion to their 
number, and their means, are, at least, as active and as ready in 
feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, as any class in the com- 
munity. Make the examinations as close as you please, bring it as 
near home as you like, and you will find the fact to be as I have 
asserted. 

H. J. Raymond. Feb. \^th. Tou overlook one main objection. 
Association aims, not merely to re-organize Labor, but to revolu- 
tionize Society, to change radically Laws, Government, Manners 
and Eeligion. It pretends to be a new Social Science, discovered 
by Fourier. In our next article we shall show what its principles 
are, and point out their inevitable tendency. 

Horace Ch^eeley. Feb. VJth. i)o so. Meanwhile let me remind 
you, that there is need of a new Social System, when the old one 
works so villanously and wastefully. There is Ireland, with three 
hundred thousand able-bodied men, willing to work, yet unem- 
ployed. Their labor is worth forty-five millions of dollars a year, 
which they need, and Ireland needs, but which the present Social 
System dooms to waste. There is work enough in Ireland to do, 
and men enough willing to do it ; but the spell of a vicious Social 
System broods over the island, and keeps the woikmen and the 
work apart. Four centuries ago, the English laborer could earn 
by his labor a good and sufficient subsistence for his family. Since 
that time Labor and Talent have made England rich ' beyond the 
dreams of avarice ;' and, at this day, the Laborer, as a rule, cannot» 
by unremitting toil, fully supply the necessities of his family. His 
bread is coarse, his clothing scanty, his home a hovel, his childrer 
uninstructed, his life cheerless. He lives from hand to mouth ir\ 
abject terror of the poor-house, where, he shudders to think, he 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 215 

must end his days. Precisely the same causes are in operation 
here, and, in due time, will produce precisely the same effects. 
There is need of a Social Re-formation ! 

H. J. Raymond. March 3^. You are mistaken. The state- 
ment that the laborers of the present day are worse off than those 
of former ages, has been exploded. They are not. On the contrary, 
their condition is IjeUer in every respect. Evils under the present 
Social System exist, great evils — evils, for the removal of which 
the most constant and zealous efforts ought to be made ; yet they 
are very far from being as great or as general as the Associationists 
assert. The fact is indisputable, that, as a rule throughout the 
country, no honest man, able and willing to work, need stand idle 
from lack of opportunity. The exceptions to this rule are com- 
paratively few, and arise from temporary and local causes. But we 
proceed to examine the fundamental principle of the Social System 
proposed to be substituted for that now established. In one word, 
that principle is Self-indulgence I " Reason and Passion," writes 
Parke Godwin, the author of one of the clearest expositions of So- 
cialism yet published, " will be in perfect accord : duty and pleas- 
ure will have the same meaning ; without inconvenience or calcu- 
lation, man will follow Ms lent: hearing only of Attraction, he will 
never act from necessity, and never curb himself dy restraints.''^ 
What becomes of the self-denial so expressly, so frequently, so em- 
phatically enjoined by the New Testament ? Fourierism and Chris- 
tianity, Pourierism and Morality, Fourierism and Conjugal Constancy 
are in palpable hostility ! We are told, that if a man has a passion 
for a dozen kinds of work, he joins a dozen groups ; if for a dozen 
kinds of study, he joins a dozen groups ; and, if for a dozen women, 
the System requires that there must be a dozen different groups for 
his full gratification ! For man will follow his lent, and never curb 
himself by restraints ! 

Horace Greeley . March 12th. Not so. I re-assert what I before 
proved, that the English laborers of to-day are worse off than those 
of former centuries ; and I deny with disgust and indignation that 
there is in Socialism, as American Socialists understand and teach it, 
any provision or license for the gratification of criminal passions or 



216 THE TRIBUNE AND FOURIERISM. 

nnlawful desires. Why not quote Mr. Godwin fully and fairly ? 
Why suppress his remark, that, "So long as the Passions may 
bring forth Disorder — so lojig as Incl'mation may de in oppositioii 
to Duty — we reprobate as strongly as any class of men all indulg- 
ence of the inclinations and feelings ; and where Eeason is unable 
to guide them, have no objection to other means" ? Socialists know 
nothing of Groups, organized, or to be organized, for the perpetra- 
tion of crimes, or the practice of vices. 

ff. J. Raymond. March IWi. Perhaps not. But 1 know, from 
the writings of leading Socialists, that the law of Passional Attrac- 
tion, i. e. Self-indulgence, is the essential and fundamental principle 
of Association ; and that, while Christianity pronounces the free 
and full gratification of the passions a crime^ Socialism extols it as 
a virtue. 

Horace Gi^eeley. March 26^A. Impertinent. Your articles are all 
entitled " The Socialism of the Tribune examined" ; and the Tri- 
bune has never contained a line to justify your unfair inferences 
from garbled quotations from the writings of Godwin and Fourier. 
What the Tribune advocates is, simply and solely, such an organiza- 
tion of Society as will secure to every man the opportunity of unin- 
terrupted and profitable labor, and to every child nourishment and 
culture. These things, it is undeniable, the present Social System 
does not secure ; and hence the necessity of a new and better organ- 
ization. So no more of your ' Passional Attraction.' 

H. J. Raymond. April IQth. I tell you the scheme of Fourier is 
essentially and fundamentally irreligious ! by which I mean that it 
does not follow my Catechism, and apparently ignores the Thirty- 
Nine Articles. Shocking. 

Horace Ch^eeley^ April 2%th. Humph ! 

H J. Raymond. May 20th. The Tribune is doing a great deal of 
harm. The editor does not know it — but it is. 

Thus ended Fourierism. Thenceforth, the Tribune alluded to the 



THE TRIBUNE'S SECOND TEAR. 217 

subject occasionally, but only in reply to those who sought to make 
political or personal capital by reviving it. By its discussion of the 
subject it rendered a great service to the country : first, by afford 
ing one more proof that, for the ills that flesh is heir to, there is, 
there can be, no panacea ; secondly, by exhibiting the economy of 
association, and familiarizing the public mind v^ith the idea of asso- 
ciation — an idea susceptible of a thousand applications, and capable, 
in a thousand ways, of alleviating and preventing human woes. 
We see its perfect triumph in Insurance, whereby a loss which 
would crush an individual falls upon the whole company of insur- 
ers, lightly and unperceived. Future ages will witness its success- 
ful application to most of the affairs of life. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE tribune's SECOND YEAR. 

Increase of price— The Tribune offends the Sixth Ward fighting-men— The oflSce threa^ 
ened— Novel preparations for defense— Charles Dickens defended — The Editor 
travels— Visits Washington, and sketches the Senators— At Mount Vernon— At 
Niagara— A hard hit at iMajor Noah. 

The Tribune, as we have seen, was started as a penny paper. It 
began its second volume, on the eleventh of April, 1842, at the in- 
creased price of nine cents a week, or two cents for a single num- 
oer, and effected this serious advance without losing two hundred 
of its twelve thousand subscribers. At the same time, Messrs. Gree- 
ley and McElrath started the ' American Laborer,' a monthly maga- 
zine, devoted chiefly to the advocacy of Protection. It was pub- 
lished at seventy-five cents for the twelve numbers which the pros- 
pectus announced. 

When it was remarked,- a few pages back, that the word with the 
Tribune was Fight, no allusion was intended to the use of carnal 
weapons. " The pen is mightier than the sword," claptraps Bulwer 
in one of his plays ; and the Pen was the only fighting implement 



218 THE tribune's' second year. 

referred to. It came to pass, however, in the first month of the 
Tribune's second year, that the pointed nib of the warhke journal 
gave deadly umbrage to certain fighting men of the Sixth Ward, by 
exposing their riotous conduct on the day of the Spring elections. 
The office was, in consequence, threatened by the offended parties 
with a nocturnal visit, and. the office, alive to the duty of hospital- 
ity, prepared to give the expected guests a suitable reception by 
arming itself to the chimneys. 
This (I believe) was one of the paragraphs deemed most offen- 



"It appears that some of the 'Spartan Band,' headed by Michael Walsh, 
after a fight in the 4th District of the Sixth Ward, paraded up Centre street, 
opposite the Halls of Justice, to the neighborhood of the poll of the 3d Dis- 
trict, where, after marching and counter-marching, the leader Walsh re-com- 
menced the work of violence by knocking down an unoffending individual, who 
was following near him. This was the signal for a general attack of this band 
upon the Irish population, who were knocked down in every direction, until the 
street was literally strewed with their prostrate bodies. After this demonstra- 
tion of ' Spartan valor,' the Irish fled, and the band moved on to another poll 
to re-enact their deeds of violence. In the interim the Irish proceeded to rally 
their forces, and, armed with sticks of cord- wood and clubs, paraded through 
Centre street, about 300 strong, attacking indiscriminately and knocking down 
nearly all who came in their way — some of their victims, bruised and bloody, 
having to be carried into the Police Office and the prison, to protect them from 
being murdered. A portion of the Irish then dispersed, while another portion 
proceeded to a house in Orange street, which they attacked and riddled from 
top to bottom. Re-uniting their scattered forces, the Irish bands again, with 
increased numbers, marched up Centre street, driving all before them, and 
when near the Halls of Justice, the cry was raised, ' Americans, stand firm !' 
when a body of nearly a thousand voters surrounded the Irish bands, knocked 
them down, and beat them without mercy — while some of the fallen Irishmen 
were with difficulty rescued from the violence that would have destroyed 
them, had they not been hurried into the Police Office and prison as a place of 
refuge. In this encounter, or the one that preceded it, a man named Ford, 
and said to be one of the ' Spartans,' was carried into the Police Office beaten 
almost to death, and was subsequently transferred to the Hospital." 

On the morning of the day on which this appeared, two gentle- 
men, more muscular than civil, called at the office to say, that the 
Tribune's account of the riot was incorrect, and did injustice to 



THE OFFICE THREATENED. 219 

individuals, wlio expected to see a retraction on the following day. 
No retraction appeared on the following day, but, on the contrary, 
a fuller and more emphatic repetition of the charge. The next 
morniDg, the office was favored by a second visit from the muscular 
gentlemen. One of them seized a clerk by the shoulder, and re- 
quested to be informed whether Tie was the offspring of a female 
dog who had put that into the paper, pointing to the offensive arti- 
cle. The clerk protested his innocence; and the men of muscle 
swore, that, whoever put it in, if the next paper did not do them jus- 
tice, the Bloody Sixth would come down and 'smash the office.' 
The Tribune of the next day contained a complete history of the 
riot, and denounced its promoters with more vehemence than on 
the days preceding. The Bloody Sixth was ascertained to be in a 
ferment, and the office prepared itself for defense. 

One of the compositors was a member of the City Guard, and 
through his interest, the muskets of that admired company of citi- 
zen-soldiers were procured ; as soon as the evening shades pre- 
vailed, they were conveyed to the office, and distributed among 
the men. One of the muskets was placed near the desk of the Ed- 
itor, who looked up from his writing and said, he ' guessed they 
wouldn't come down,' and resumed his work. The foreman of the 
press-room in the basement caused a pipe to be conveyed from the 
safety valve of the boiler to the steps that led up to the sidewalk. 
The men in the Herald office, near by, made common cause, for 
this occasion only, with their foemen of the Tribune, and agreed, 
on the first alarm, to rush through the sky-light to the flat roof, and 
rain down on the heads of the Bloody Sixth a shower of brick-bats 
to be procured from the surrounding chimneys. It was thought, 
that what with volleys of musketry from the upper windows, a 
storm of bricks from the roof, and a blast of hot steam from the 
cellar, the Bloody Sixth would soon have enough of smashing the 
Tribune office. The men of the allied offices waited for the expect- 
ed assault with the most eager desire. At twelve o'clock, the part- 
ners made a tour of inspection, and expressed their perfect satisfac- 
tion with all the arrangements. But, unfortunately for the story, 
the night wore away, the paper went to press, morning dawned, 
and yet the Bloody Sixth had not appeared ! Either the Bloody 
Sixth had thought better of it, or the men of muscle had har* no 



220 

right to speak in its awful name. From -whatever cause — these 
masterly preparations were made in vain; and the Tribune went on 
its belligerent way, unsmashed. For some weeks, 'it kept at' the 
election frauds, and made a complete exp':.sure of the guilty persons. 

Let us glance hastily over the rest of the volume. 

It was the year of Charles Dickens' visit to the United States. 
The Tribune ridiculed the extravagant and unsuitable honors paid 
to the amiable novelist, but spoke strongly in favor of international 
copyright, which Mr. Dickens made it his ' mission ' to advocate. 
When the ' American I'J'otes for General Circulation ' appeared, tho 
Tribune was one of the few papers that gave it a ' favorable notice,' 
""We have read the book," said the Tribune, "very carefully, and 
we are forced to sa}^, in the face of all this stormy denunciation, 
that, so far as its tone toward this country is concerned, it is one 
of the iiery dest icorTcs of its class ice have ever seen. Tliere is not 
a sentence it which seems to have sprung from ill-nature or con- 
tempt; not a word of censure is uttered for its own sake or in 
a fault-finding spirit ; the whole is a calm, judicious, gentlemanly, 
unexceptionable record of what the writer saw — and a candid and 
correct judgment of its worth and its defects. How a writer could 
look upon the broadly-blazoned and applauded slanders of his own 
land which abound in this — ^how he could run through the pages of 
Lester's book — filled to the margin with the grossest, most un- 
founded and illiberal assaults upon all the institutions and the social 
phases of Great Britain — and then write so calmly of this country, 
with so manifest a freedom from passion and prejudice, as Dick- 
ers has done, is to us no slight marvel. That he has done it is 
infinitely to his credit, and confirms us in the opinion we had long 
since formed of the soundness of his head and the goodness of his 
heart." 

In the summer of 1842, Mr. Greeley made an extensive tour, visit- 
ing Washington, Mount Yernon, Poultney, Westhaven, London- 
derry, Niagara, and the home of his parents in Pennsylvania, from 
all of which he wrote letters to the Tribune. His letters from 
Washington, entitled ' Glances at the Senate,' gave agreeable 
sketches of Calhoun, Preston, Benton, Evans, Crittenden, Wright, 
and others. Silas Wright he thought the 'keenest logician in the 
Senate,' the 'Ajax oi plausibility,' the 'Talleyrand of the forum.' 



VISITS NIAGARA. 221 

Calhoun he described as the ' compactest speaker' in the Senate ; 
Preston, as the ' most forcible declaimer ;' Evans, as the ' most dex- 
terous and diligent legislator ;' Benton, as an individual, " gross and 
burly in person, of countenance most unintellectual, in manner pom- 
pous and inflated, in matter empty, in conceit a giant, in influence 
a cipher !" 

From Mount Yernon, Mr. Greeley wrote an interesting letter, 
chiefly descriptive. It concluded thus:— "Slovs^ly, pensively, we 
turned our faces from the rest of the mighty dead to the turmoil of 
the restless living — from the solemn sublime repose of Mount Yer- 
non to the ceaseless intrigues, the petty strifes, the ant-hill bustle of 
the Federal City. Each has its own atmosphere; London and 
Mecca are not so unlike as they. The silent, enshrouding woods, 
the gleaming, majestic river, the bright, benignant sky — it is fitly 
here, amid the scenes he loved and hallowed, that the man whose 
life and character have redeemed Patriotism and Liberty from the 
reproach which centuries of designing knavery and hollow profess- 
ion had cast upon them, now calmly awaits the trump of the arch- 
angel. Who does not rejoice that the original design of removing 
his ashes to the city has never been consummated — that they lie 
where the pilgrim may reverently approach them, unvexed by the 
light laugh of the time-kilHng worldhng, unannoyed by the vain or 
vile scribblings of the thoughtless or the base ? Thus may they 
repose forever ! that the heart of the patriot may be invigorated, 
th« hopes of the philanthropist strengthened and his aims exalted, 
the pulse of the American quickened and his aspirations purified by 
a visit to Mount Yernon !" 

From Niagara, the traveller wrote a letter to Graham's Magazine : 

" Years," said he, * tliough not many, have weighed upon me since first, in 
boyhood, I gazed from the deck of a canal-boat upon the distant cloud of white 
vapor which marked the position of the world's great cataract, and listened to 
catch the rumbling of its deep thunders. Circumstances did not then permit me 
to gratify my strong desire of visiting it ; and now, when I am tempted to won- 
der at the stolidity of those who live within a day's journey, yet live on 
through half a century without one glance at the mighty torrent, I am 
checked by the reflection that I myself passed within a dozen miles of it no 
less than five times before I was able to enjoy its magnificence. The propi- 
tious hour camq at last, however ; and, after a disappointed gaze from the 



222 

upper terrace on the British side, (in which I half feared that the sheet of 
broken and boiling water above was all the cataract that existed,) and rapid 
tortuous descent by the woody declivity, I stood at length on Table Rock, and 
the whole immensity of the tremendous avalanche of waters burst at once on 
my arrested vision, while awe struggled with amazement for the mastery of 
my soul. 

" This was late in October ; I have twice visited the scene amid the freshness 
and beauty of June ; but I think the late Autumn is by far the better season. 
There is then a sternness in the sky, a plaintive melancholy in the sighing of 
the wind through the mottled forest foliage, which harmonizes better with the 
spirit of the scene ; for the Genius of Niagara, friend! is never a laughter- 
loving spirit. For the gaudy vanities, the petty pomps, the light follies of the 
hour, he has small sympathy. Let not the giddy heir bring here his ingots, 
the selfish aspirant his ambition, the libertine his victim, and hope to find 
enjoyment and gaiety in the presence. Let none come here to nurse his pride, 
or avarice, or any other low desire. God and his handiwork here stand forth 
in lone sublimity ; and all the petty doings and darings of the ants at the 
base of the pyramid appear in their proper insignificance. Few can have 
visited Niagara and left it no humbler, no graver than they came." 

On his return to the city, Horace Greeley subsided, with curious 
abruptness, into the editor of the Tribune. This note appears on 
the morning after his arrival : 

" The senior editor of this paper has returned to his post, after an absence 
of four weeks, during which he has visited nearly one half of the counties of 
this State, and passed through portions of Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachu- 
setts, etc. During this time he has written little for the Tribune save the 
casual and hasty letters to which his initials were subscribed ; but it need 
hardly be said that the general course and conduct of the paper have been the 
same as if he had been at his post. 

" Two deductions only from the observations he has made and the information 
he has gathered during his tour, will here be given. They are these : 

"1. The cause of Protection to Home Industry is much stronger throughout 
this and the adjoining States than even the great party which mainly up- 
holds it; and nothing will so much tend to ensure the election of Henry Clay 
next President as the veto of an efficient Tariff bill by John Tyler. 

" 2. The strength of the Whig party is unbroken by recent disasters and 
treachery, and only needs the proper opportunity to manifest itself in all the 
energy and power of 1840. If a distinct and unequivocal issue can be made 
upon the great leading questions at issue between the rival parties — on Pro- 
tection to Home Industry and Internal Improvement — the Whig ascendency 
will be triumphantly vindicated in the coming election." 



A HARD BIT AT MAJOR NOAH. 223 

1 need not dwell on the politics of that year. For Protection — 
for Clay— against Tyler— -against his vetoes — for a law to punish se 
duction — against capital punishment — imagine countless columns. 

In October, died Dr. Channing. " Deeply," wrote Mr. Greeley, 
" do we deplore his loss, most untimely, to the faithless eye of man 
does it seem — to the cause of truth, of order and of right, and still 
more deeply do we lament that he has left behind him, in the same 
department of exertion, so few, in proportion to the number need«d, 
to supply the loss occasioned by his death." Soon after, the Tri- 
bune gave Theodore Parker a hearing by publishing sketches of his 
lectures. 

An affair of a personal nature made considerable noise about this 
time, which is worth alluding to, for several reasons. Major Noah, 
then the editor of the ' Union,' a Tylerite paper of small circula- 
tion and irritable temper, was mucb addicted to attacks on the Tri- 
bune. On this occasion, he was unlucky enough to publish a ri- 
diculous story, to the effect that Horace Greeley had taken his 
breakfast in company with two colored men at a boarding-house in 
Barclay street. The story was eagerly copied by the enemies of the 
Tribune, and at length Horace Greeley condescended to notice it. 
The point of his most happy and annihilating reply is contained in 
these, its closing sentences : " We have never associated with 
blacks ; never eaten with them ; and yet it is quite probable that if 
we Jiad seen two cleanly, decent colored persons sitting down at a 
second table in another room just as we were finishing our break- 
fast, we might have gone away without thinking or caring about 
the matter. "We choose our own company in all things, and that 
of our own race, but cherish little of that spirit which for eighteen 
centuries has held the kindred of M. M. Noah accursed of God and 
man, outlawed and outcast, and unfit to be the associates of Chris- 
tians, Mussulmen, or even self-respecting Pagans. Where there are 
thousands who would not eat with a negro, there are (or lately 
were) tens of thousands who would not eat with a Jew. We leave 
to such renegadee as the Judge of Israel the stirring up of prejudices 
and the prating of ' usages of society,' which over half the world 
make him an abhorrence, as they not long since would have done 
here; we treat all men according to what they are and not 
whence they spring. That he is a knave, we think much to his dis- 



224 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FJ^J^IMORE COOPER. 

credit ; that he is a Jew nothing, however unfortunate it may be 
for that luckless people." This was a hit not more hard than fair. 
The ' Judge of Israel,' it is said, felt it acutely. 

The Tribune continued to prosper. It ended the second volume 
with a circulation of twenty thousand, and an advertising patron- 
age so extensive as to compel the issue of frequent supplements. 
The position of its chief editor grew in importance. His advice and 
C(^operation were sought by so many persons and for so many ob- 
jects, that he was obliged to keep a notice standing, which request- 
ed " aU who would see him personally in his office, to call between 
the hours of 8 and 9 A. M,, and 5 and 6 P. M., unless the most im- 
perative necessity dictate a different hour. If this notice be dis- 
regarded, he will be compelled to abandon his office and seek else- 
where a chance for an hour's uninterrupted devotion to his daily 
duties." 

His first set lecture in New York is thus announced, January 
3d, 1843 : "Horace Greeley will lecture before the New York Ly- 
ceum at the Tabernacle, this evening. Subject, ' Human Life.' The 
lecture will commence at half past 7, precisely. If those who care 
to bear it will sit near the desk, they will favor the lecturer's weak 
and husky voice." 



CHAPTER XVIII. . 

THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. 

The libel— Horace Greeley's narrative of the trial— He reviews the opening speech of 
Mr. Cooper's counsel— A striking Illustration— He addresses the jury— Mr. Cooper 
sums up— Horace Greeley comments on the speech of the novelist- Indoing so he 
perpetrates new libels— The verdict— Mr. Greeley's remarks on the same— Strikes 
a bee-line for New York— A new suit- An imaginary case. 

A MAN is never so characteristic as when he sports. There was 
something in the warfare waged by the author of the Leatherstock- 
Tng against the press, and particularly in his suit of the Tribune for 
ifbel, that appealed so strongly to Horace Greeley's sens© of the 



THE LIBEL ON J. FENIMORE COOPER. 225 

comic, that he seldom alluded to it without, apparently, falling into 
a paroxysm of mirth. Some of his most humorous passages were 
written in connection with what he called ' the Cooperage of the 
Tribune.' To that affair, therefore, it is proper that a short chapter 
should be devoted, before pursuing further the History of the 
Tribune. 

The matter alleged to be libellous appeared in the Tribune, Nov. 
17th, 1841. The trial took place at Saratoga, Dec. 9th, 1842. Mr. 
Greeley defended the suit in person, and, on returning to New York, 
wrote a long and ludicrous account of the trial, which occupied 
eleven columns and a quarter in the Tribune of Dec. 12th. For 
that number of the paper there was such a demand, that the ac- 
count of the trial was, soon after, re-published in a pamphlet, of 
which this chapter will be little more than a condensation. 

The libel — such as it was — the reader may find lurking in the 
following epistle : 

" MR. FENIMORE COOPER AND HIS LIBELS. 

"EoNDA, Nov. 17, 1841. 
" To THE Editor of the Tribune : — 

" The Circuit Court now sitting here is to he occupied chiefly with the legal 
griefs of Mr. Fenimore Cooper, who has determined to avenge himself upon 
the Press for having contributed by its criticisms to his waning popularity as 
a novelist. 

"The 'handsome Mr. Effingham' has three cases of issue here, two of which 
are against Col. "Webb, Editor of the Courier and Enquirer, and one against 
Mr. Weed, Editor of the Albany Evening Journal. 

" Mr. Weed not appearing on Monday, (the first day of court,) Cooper mov- 
ed for judgment by default, as Mr. Weed's counsel had not arrived. Col. 
Webb, who on passing through Albany, called at Mr. Weed's house, and 
learned that his wife was seriously and his daughter dangerously ill, request- 
ed Mr. Sacia to state the facts to the Court, and ask a day's delay, Mr. Saeia 
made, at the same time, an appeal to Mr. Cooper's humanity. But that appeal, 
of course, was an unavailing one. The novelist pushed his advantage. The 
Court, however, ordered the cause to go over till the next day, with the un- 
derstanding that the default should be entered then if Mr. AYeed did not ap- 
pear. Col. Webb then despatched a messenger to Mr. Weed with this infor- 
mation. The messenger returned with a letter from Mr. Weed, stating that 
his daughter lay very ill, and that he would not leave her while she was suf 
fering or in danger. Mr. Cooper, therefore, immediately moved for his default. 
Mr. Sacia interposed again for time, but it was denied. A jury was empnn- 

10* 



226 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FI»NIMORE COOPER. 

elled to assess Mr. Effingham's damages. The trial, of course, was ex-parte, 
Mr. "Weed being absent and defenceless. Cooper's lawyer made a wordy, 
windy, abusive appeal for exemplary damages. The jury retired, under a 
strong charge against Mr. Weed from Judge Willard, and after remaining in 
their room till twelve o'clock at night, sealed a verdict for S400 for Mr. Effing- 
ham, which was delivered to the Court this morning. 

" This meagre verdict, under the circumstances, is a severe and mortifying 
rebuke to Cooper, who had everything his own way. 

" The value of Mr. Cooper's character, therefore, has been judicially ascer- 
tained. 

" It is worth exactly four hundred dollars. 

" Col. Webb's trial comes on this afternoon; his counsel, C. L. Jordan, Esq., 
having just arrived in the up train. Cooper will be blown sky high. This 
experiment upon the Editor of the Courier and Enquirer, I predict, will cure 
the ' handsome Mr. Effingham' of his monomania for libels." 

The rest of the story shall be given here in Mr. Greeley's own 
words. He begins the narrative thus : — 

" The responsible Editor of the Tribune returned yesterday morning from a 
week's journey to and sojourn in the County of Saratoga, having been thereto 
urgently persuaded by a Supreme Court writ, requiring him to answer to the 
declaration of Mr. J. Fenimore Cooper in an action for Libel. 

" This suit was originally to have been tried at the May Circuit at Ballston ; 
but neither Eenimore (who was then engaged in the Coopering of Col. Stone 
of the Commercial) nor we had time to attend to it — so it went over to this 
term, which opened at Ballston Spa en Monday, Dec. 5th. We arrived on 
the ground at eleven o'clock of that day, and found the plaintiff and his 
lawyers ready for us, our case No. 10 on the calendar, and of course a good 
prospect of an early trial ; but an important case involving Water-rights came 
in ahead of us (No. 8) taking two days, and it was half-past 10, A.M., of 
Friday, before ours was reached — very fortunately for us, as we had no lawyer, 
had never talked over the case with one, or made any preparation whatever, 
save in thought, and had not even found time to read the papers pertaining 
to it till we arrived at Ballston. 

" The delay in reaching the case gave us time for all ; and that we did not 
employ lawyers to aid in our conduct or defense proceeded from no want of 
confidence in or deference to the many eminent members of the Bar there ia 
attendance, beside Mr. Cooper's three able counsel, but simply from the fact 
that we wished to present to the Court some considerations which we thought 
had been overlooked jr overborne in the recent Trials of the Press for Libel 
before our Supreme and Circuit Courts, and which, since they appealed more 
directly and forcibly to the experience of Editors than of Lawyers, we pre- 



THE OPENING SPEECH OF MR COOPEr's COUNSEL. 227 

Bumed an ordinary editor might present as plainly and fully as an able law- 
yer. We wished to place before the Court and the country those views which 
we understand the Press to maintain with us of its own position, duties, 
responsibilities, and rights, as affected by the practical construction given of 
late years in this State to the Law of Libel, and its application to editors and 
journals. Understanding that we could not appear both in person and by 
counsel, we chose the former ; though on trial we found our opponent was per- 
mitted to do what we supposed we could not. So much by way of explana- 
tion to the many able and worthy lawyers in attendance on the Circuit, from 
whom we received every kindness, who would doubtless have aided us most 
cheerfully if we had required it, and would have conducted our case far more 
skillfully than we either expected or cared to do. We had not appeared there 
to be saved from a verdict by any nice technicality or legal subtlety. 

" The case was opened to the Court and Jury by Eichard Cooper, nephew 
and attorney of the plaintiff, in a speech of decided pertinence and force. 
* * * Mr. R. Cooper has had much experience in this class of cases, and 
is a young man of considerable talent. His manner is the only fault about 
him, being too elaborate and pompous, and his diction too bombastic to pro- 
duce the best effect on an unsophisticated auditory. If he will only contrive 
to correct this, he will yet make a figure at the Bar — or rather, he will make 
less figure and do more execution. The force of his speech was marred by 
Fenimore's continually interrupting to dictate and suggest to him ideas when 
he would have done much better if left alone. For instance ; Fenimore in- 
structed him to say, that our letter from Fonda above recited purported to be 
from the ' correspondent of the Tribune,' and thence to draw and press on the 
Jury the inference that the letter was written by some of our own corps, whom 
we had sent to Fonda to report these trials. This inference we were obliged 
to repel in our reply, by showing that the article plainly read ' correspondence 
of the Tribune,' just as when a fire, a storm, or some other notable event 
occurs in any part of the country or world, and a friend who happens to be 
there, sits down and dispatches us a letter by the first mail to give us early 
advices, though he has no connection with us but by subscription and good 
will, and perhaps never wrote a line to us in his life till now. 

" The next step in Mr. R. Cooper's opening : We had, to the Declaration 
ag-ainst us, pleaded the General Issue— that is Not Guilty of libelling Mr. 
Cooper, at the same time fully admitting that we had published all that he 
called our libels on him, and desiring to put in issue only the fact of their 
being or not being libels, and have the verdict turn on that issue. But Mr. 
Cooper told the Jury (and we found, to our cost, that this was New York Su- 
preme and Circuit Court law) that by pleading Not Guily we had legally ad- 
mitted ourselves to be Guilty— thsit all that was necessary for the plaintiflF 
under that plea was to put in our admission of publication, and then the Jury 



228 THE TKIBUNE AND J. FJJNIMORE COOPER. 

had nothing to do but to assess the plaintiffs damages under the direction of 
the Court. In short, we were made to understand that there was no way un- 
der Heaven — we beg pardon ; under New York Supreme Court Law — in which 
the editor of a newspaper could plead to an action for libel that the matter 
charged upon him as libelous was not in its nature or intent a libel, but sim- 
ply a statement, according to the best of his knowledge and belief, of some 
notorious and every way public transaction, or his own honest comments 
thereon ; and ask the Jury to decide whether the plaintiff's averment or his 
answers thereto be the truth ! To illustrate the beauties of 'the perfection 
of human reason ' — always intending New York Circuit and Supreme Court 
reason — on this subject, and to show the perfect soundness and pertinence of 
Mr. Cooper's logic according to the decisions of these Courts, we will give an 
example . 

" Our police reporter, say this evening, shall bring in on his chronicle of 
daily occurrences the following : 

" * A hatchet-faced chap, with mouse-colored whiskers, who gave the name 
of John Smith, was brought in by a watchman who found him lying drunk in 
the gutter. After a suitable admonition from the Justice, and on payment of 
the usual fine, he was discharged.' 

"Now, our reporter, who, no more than we, ever before heard of this John 
Smith, is only ambitious to do his duty correctly and thoroughly, to make his de- 
scription accurate and graphic, and perhaps to protect better men who rejoice 
in the cognomen of John Smith, from being confounded with this one in the 
popular rumor of his misadventure. If the paragraph should come under 
our notice, we should probably strike it out altogether, as relating to a subject 
of no public moment, and likely to crowd out better matter. But we do not 
see it, and in it goes : Well : John Smith, who ' acknowledges the com ' as to 
being accidentally drunk and getting into the watch-house, is not willing to 
rest under the imputation of being hatched-faced and having mouse-colored 
whiskers, retains Mr. Richard Cooper — for he could not do better — and com- 
mences an action for libel against us. We take the best legal advice, and are 
told that we must demur to the Declaration — that is, go before a court without 
jury, where no facts can be shown, and maintain that the matter charged as 
uttered by us is not libelous. But Mr. R. Cooper meets us there and says justly : 
' How is the court to decide without evidence that this matter is not libelous 1 
If it was written and inserted for the express purpose of ridiculing and bring- 
ing into contempt my client, it clearly is libelous. And then as to damages : 
My client is neither rich nor a great man, but his character, in his own circle, 
is both dear and valuable to him. We shall be able to show on trial that he 
was on the point of contracting marriage with the daughter of the keeper of 
the most fashionable and lucrative oyster-cellar in Orange street, whoso 
nerves were so shocked at the idea of her intended having a ' hatchet face and 
mouse-colored whiskers,' that she fainted outright on reading the paragraph 



THE OPENING SPEECH OF MR. COOPEr's COUNSEL. 229 

(copied from your paper into the next day's 'Sun'), and was not brouglit to 
until a whole bucket of oysters which she had just opened had been poured 
over her in a hurried mistake for water. Since then, she has frequent relapses 
and shuddering, especially when my client's name is mentioned, and utterly 
refuses to see or speak of him. The match is dead broke, and my client loses 
thereby a capital home, where victuals are more plentiful and the supply more 
" steady than it has been his fortune to find them for the last year or two. He 
loses, with all this, a prospective interest in the concern, and is left utterly 
without business or means of support except this suit. Besides, how can you 
tell, in the absence of all testimony, that the editor was not paid to insert this 
villanous description of my client, by some envious rival for the affections of 
the oyster-maid, who. calculates both to gratify his spite and advance his lately 
hopeless wooing ? In this case, it certainly is a libel. We affirm this to be 
the case, and you are bound to presume that it is. The demurrer must be 
overruled.' And so it must be. No judge could decide otherwise. 

" Now we are thrown back upon a dilemma : Either we must plead Justifica- 
tion, in which case tee admit that our publication was on its face a libel ; and 
now, woe to us if we cannot prove Mr. Cooper's client's face as sharp, and his 
whiskers of the precise color as stated. A shade more or less ruins us. For, be 
it known, by attempting a Justification we have not merely admitted our of- 
fense to be a libel, but our plea is an aggravation of the libel, and entitles the 
plaintiff to recover higher and more exemplary damages. But we have just 
one chance more : to plead the general issue — to wit, that we did not libel the 
said John Smith, and go into court prepared to show that we had no malice 
toward or intent to injure Mr. Smith, never heard of him before, and have done 
all we knew how to make him reparation — ia short, that we have done and in- 
tended nothing which brings us fairly within the iron grasp of the law of libel. 
But here again, while trying our best to get in somehow a plea of Not Guilty, 
we have actually pleaded Guilty !— so says the Supreme Court law of New 
York — our admitted publication (no matter of what) concerning John Smith 
proves irresistibly that we have libeled him — we are not entitled in any way 
whatever to go to the Jury with evidence tending to show that our publication 
is not a libel — or, in overthrow of the legal presumption, of malice, to show 
that there actually was none. All that we possibly can offer must be taken 
into account merely in mitigation of damages. Our hide is on the fence, you 
see, any how. 

" But to return to Richard's argument at Ballston. He put very strongly 
against us the fact that our Fonda correspondent (see Declaration above) con- 
sidered Fenimore's verdict there a meagre one. ' Gentlemen of the jury,' said 
he, ' see how these editors rejoice and exult when they get off with so light a 
verdict as S400 ! They consider it a triumph over the law and the defendant 
They don't consider that amount anything. If you mean to vindicate the law." 
and the character of ray client, you see yop must give much raoro th.an this.' 



230 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. 

This was a good point, but not quite fair. The exultation over the * meagre 
verdict' was expressly in view of the fact, that the cause was undefended — that 
Fenimore and his counsel had it all their own way, evidence, argument, charge, 
and all. Still, Richard had a good chance here to appeal for a large verdict, 
and he did it well. 

'• On one other point Richard talked more like a cheap lawyer and less like 
a — like what we had expected of him — than through the general course of his 
argument. In his pleadings, he had set forth Horace Greeley and Thomas Mc- 
Elrath as Editors and Proprietors of the Tribune, and we readily enough ad- 
mitted whatever he chose to assert about us except the essential thing in dis 
pute between us. Well, on the strength of this he puts it to the Court and 
Jury, that Thomas McElrath is ono of the Editors of the Tribune, and that 
be, being (having been) a lawyer, would have been in Court to defend this 
suit, if there was any valid defense to be made. This, of course, went very 
hard against us ; and it was to no purpose that we informed him that Thomas 
McElrath, though legally implicated in it, had nothing to do practically with 
this matter — (all which he knew very well long before) — and that the other 
defendant is the man who does whatever libeling is done in the Tribune, and 
holds himself everywhere responsible for it. We presume there is not much 
doubt even so far off as Cooperstown as to who edits the Tribune, and who 
wrote the editorial about the Fonda business. (In point of fact, the real and 
palpable defendant in this suit never even conversed with his partner a quar- 
ter of an hour altogether about this subject, considering it entirely his own 
job ; and the plaintiff himself, in conversation with Mr. McElrath, in the pres- 
ence of his attorney, had fully exonerated Mr. M. from anything more than 
legal liability.) But Richard was on his legs as a lawyer — he pointed to the 
seal on his bond — and therefore insisted that Thomas McElrath was art and 
part in the alleged libel, not only legally, but actually, and would have been 
present to respond to it if he had deemed it susceptible of defense ! As a 
lawyer, we suppose this was right ; but, as an Editor and a man, we could not 
have done it." 

' Richard' gave way, and ' Horace' addressed tlie jury in a speech 
of fifty minutes, which need not be inserted here, because all its 
leading ideas are contained in the narrative. It was a convincing 
argument, so far as the reason and justice of the case were concern- 
ed ; and, in any court where reason and justice bore sway, would 
have gained the case. " Should you find, gentleman," concluded 
Mr, Greeley, " that I had no right to express an opinion as to the 
honor and magnanimity of Mr. Cooper, in pushing his case to a trial 
as related, you will of course compel me to pay whatever damage 
has been done to his character by such expression, followed and ac- 



MR. COOPER SUMS UP. 231 

sompanied by his own statement of the whole matter. I will not 
predict your estimate, gentlemen, but I may express my profound 
conviction that no opinion which Mr. Cooper might choose to express 
of any act of my life — no construction he could put upon my con- 
duct or motives, could possibly damage me to an extent which 
would entitle or incline me to ask damages at your hands. 

" But, gentlemen, you are bound to consider — you cannot refuse 
to consider, that if you condemn me to pay any sum whatever for 
this expression of my opinions on his conduct, you thereby seal your 
own lips, with those of your neighbors and countrymen, against any 
such expression in this or any other case ; you will no longer have 
a right to censure the rich man who harasses his poor neighbor with 
vexatious lawsuits merely to oppress and ruin him, but will be lia- 
ble by your own verdictg/;o prosecution and damages whenever you 
shall feel constrained to condemn what appears to you injustice, op- 
pression, or littleness, no matter how flagrant the case may be. 

" Gentlemen of the Jury, my character, my reputation are in your 
hands. I think I may say that I commit them to your keeping un- 
tarnished ; I will not doubt that you will return them to me unsul- 
lied. I ask of you no mercy, but justice. I have not sought this 
iv'sue ; but neither have I feared or shunned it. Should you render 
the verdict against me, I shall deplore far more than any pecuniary 
consequence the stigma of libeler which your verdict would tend to 
cast upon me — an imputation which I was never, till now, called to 
repel before a jury of my countrymen. But, gentlemen, feeling no 
consciousness of deserving such a stigma — feeling, at this moment, 
as ever, a profound conviction that I do not deserve it, I shall yet 
be consoled by the reflection that many nobler and worthier than I 
have sufiered far more than any judgment here could inflict on me 
for the Eights of Free Speech and Opinion — the right of rebuking 
oppression and meanness in the language of manly sincerity and 
honest feeling. By their example, may I still be upheld and 
strengthened. Gentlemen, I fearlessly await your decision !" 

Mr. Greeley resumes his narrative : 

" Mr. J. Feuimore Cooper summed up in person the cause for the prosecution. 
Ho commenced by giving at length the reasons which had induced him to 
bring this suit in Saratoga. The last and only one that made any impression 



232 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. 

on our mind was this, that he had heard a great deal of good of the people of 
Saratoga, and wished to form a better acquaintance with them. (Of course 
this desire was very flattering ; but we hope the Saratogans won't feel too 
proud to speak to common folds hereafter, for we want liberty to go again next 
summer.) 

" Mr. Cooper now walked into the Public Press and its alleged abuses, arro- 
gant pretensions, its interference in this ease, probable motives, etc., but the 
public are already aware of his sentiments respecting the Press, and would 
not thank us to recapitulate them. His stories of editors publishing truth and 
falsehood with equal relish may have foundation in individual cases, but cer- 
tainly none in general practice. No class of men spend a tenth part so much 
time or money in endeavoring to procure the earliest and best information 
from all quarters, as it is their duty to do. Occasionally an erroneous or ut- 
terly false statement gets into print and is copied — for editors cannot intuitive- 
ly separate all truth from falsehood — but the evil arises mainly from the cir- 
cumstance that others than editors are often the ipectators of events demand- 
ing publicity ; since we cannot tell where the next man is to be killed, or the 
next storm rage, or the next important cause to be tried : if we had the 
power of prophecy, it would then be time to invent some steam-lightning 
balloon, and have a reporter ready on the spot the moment before any notable 
event should occur. This would do it ; but now we luckless editors must too 
often depend on the observation and reports of those who are less observant, 
less careful, possibly in some cases less sagacious, than those of our own tribe. 
Our limitations are not unlike those of Mr. Weller, Junior, as stated while 
under cross-examination in the case of Bardell vs. Pickwick : 

" 'Yes, I have a pair of eyes,' replied Sam, ' and that 's just it. If they 
was a pair of patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra 
power, p'raps I might be able to see through a flight of stairs and a deal 
door, but bein' only eyes you see, my wision's limited.' 

" Fenimore proceeded to consider our defense, which he used up in five min- 
utes, by pronouncing it no defence at all ! It had nothing to do with the mat- 
ter in issue whatever, and we must be very green if we meant to be serious 
in offering it. (We were rather green in Supreme Court libel law, that 's a 
fact ; but we were put to school soon after, and have already run up quite a 
little bill for tuition, which is one sign of progress.) His Honor the Judge 
would tell the Jury that our law was no law whatever, or had nothing to do 
with this case. (So he did — Cooper was right here.) In short, our speech 
could not have been meant to apply to this case, but was probably the scrap- 
ings of our editorial closet — mere odds and ends — what the editors call ' Ba- 
laam.' Here followed a historical digression, concerning what editors call 
' Balaam,' which, as it was intended to illustrate the irrelevancy of our wholo 
argument, we thought very pertinent. It wound up with what was meant foi 
a joke about Balaam and his ass, which of course was a good thing ; but its 



MR. COOPER SUMS UP. - 2b6 

point wholly escaped us, and we believe the auditors were equally unfortunate. 
However, the wag himself appreciated and enjoyed it. 

" There were several other jokes (wo suppose they were) uttered in the course 
of this lively speech, but we did n't get into their merits, (probably not being 
in the best humor for joking ;) but one we remembered because it was really 
good, and came down to our comprehension. Fenimore was replying to our 
remarks about the ' handsome Mr. Effingham,' (see speech,) when he observed 
that if we should sue him for libel in ' pronouncing us not handsome, he should 
not plead the General Issue, but Justify.' That was a neat hit, and well 
planted. We can tell him, however, that if the Court should rule as hard 
against him as it does against editors when they undertake to justify, he would 
find it difficult to get in the testimony to establish a matter even so plain as 
our plainness. 

"Fenimore now took up the Fonda libel suit, and fought the whole battle 
over again, from beginning to end. Now we had scarcely touched on this, sup- 
posing that, since we did n^ justify, we could only refer to the statements 
contained in the publications put in issue between us, and that the Judge 
would check us, if we went beyond these. Fenimore, however, had no trou- 
ble ; said whatever he pleased — much of which would have been very perti- 
nent if he, instead of we, had been on trial — showed that he did not believe 
anything of Mr. Weed's family being sick at the time of the Fonda Trials, 
why he did not, &c., &c. We thought he might have reserved all this till we 
got down to dinner, which everybody was now hungry for, and where it would 
have been more in place than addressed to the Jury. 

" Knowing what we positively did and do of the severe illness of the wife 
of Mr. Weed, and the dangerous state of his eldest daughter at the time of the 
Fonda Trials in question — regarding them as we do — the jokes attempted to 
bo cut by Fenimore over their condition — his talk of the story growing up 
from one girl to the mother and three or four daughters — his fun about their 
probably having the Asiatic cholera among them or some other contagious 
disease, &o., &c., however it may have sounded to others, did seem to us 

rather inhu Hallo there ! we had like to have put our foot right into it 

again, after all our tuition. We mean to say, considering that, just the day 
before, Mr. Weed had been choked by his counsel into surrendering at dis- 
cretion to Fenimore, being assured (correctly) by said counsel that, as the law 
is now expounded and administered by the Supreme Court, he had no earthly 
choice but to bow his neck to the yoke, pay all that might be claimed of him 
and publish whatever humiliations should be required, or else prepare to be 
immediately ruined by the suits which Fenimore and Richard had already 
commenced or were getting ready for him — considering all this, and how much 
Mr. Weed has paid and must pay towards his subsistence — how keenly W. has 
had to smart for his speaking his mind of him — we did not think that Feni- 
more's talk at this time and place of Weed's family, and of Weed himself as 



234 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE COOPER. 

A man so paltry that he would pretend to sickness in his family as an excuse tc 
keep away from Court, and resort to trick after trick to put off his case for a 
day or two — it seemed to us, considering the present relations of the partieSj 

most ungen There we go again ! We mean to say that the whole of this 

part of Mr. Cooper's speech grated upon our feelings rather harshly. We be- 
lieve that isn't a libel. (This talking with a gag in the mouth is rather awk- 
ward at first, but we '11 get the hang of it in time. Have patience with us, 
Fenimore on one side and the Public on the other, tiJl we nick it.) 

********* 

" Personally, Fenimore treated us pretty well on this trial — let us thank 
him for that — and so much the more that he did it quite at the expense of his 
consistency and his logic. For, after stating plumply that he considered us 
the best of the whole Press-gang he had been fighting with, he yet went on to 
argue that all we had done and attempted with the intent of rendering him strict 
justice, had been in aggravation of our original trespass ! Yes, there he stood, 
saying one moment that we were, on the whole, rather a clever fellow, and 
every other arguing that we had done nothing but to injure him wantonly and 
maliciously at first, and then all in our power to aggravate that injury! 
(What a set the rest of us must be !) 

" And here is where he hit us hard for the first time. He had talked over 
an hour without gaining, as we could perceive, an inch of ground. When his 
compliment was put in, we supposed he was going on to say he was satisfied 
with our explanation of the matter and our intentions to do him justice, and 
would now throw up the case. But instead of this he took a sheer the other 
way, and came down upon us with the assertion that our publishing his state- 
ment of the Fonda business with our comments, was an aggravation of our 

original offense — was in effect adding insult to injury ! 

* * * * * * * 

" There was a little point made by the prosecution which seemed to us too 
little. Our Fonda letter had averred that Cooper had three libel-suits coming 
off there at that Circuit — two against Webb, one against Weed. Kichard and 
Fenimore argued that this was a lie — the one against Weed was all. ' The 
nicety of the distinction here taken will be appreciated when we explain that 
the suits against Webb were indictments for libels on J. Fenimore Cooper ! 

" We supposed that Fenimore would pile up the law against us, but were 
disappointed. He merely cited the last case decided against an Editor by the 
Supreme Court of this State. Of course, it was very fierce against Editors 
and their libels, but did not strike us as at all meeting the issue we had 
raised, or covering the grounds on which this case ought to have been decided. 

"Fenimore closed very effectively with an appeal for his character, and a 
picture of the sufferings of his wife and family — his grown-up daughters often 
Buffused in tears by these attacks on their father. Some said this was mawk- 
ish, but we consider it good, and think it told. We have a different theory as 



THE VERDICT. 285 

to what the girls were crying for, but we won't state it lest another dose of 
Supreme Court law be administered to us. (' Not any more at present, I 
thank ye' 7) 

"Fenimore closed something before two o'clock, having spoken over an hour 
and a half. If he had not wasted so much time in promising to make but a 
short speech and to close directly, he could have got through considerably 
sooner. Then he did wrong to Richard by continually recurring to and ful- 
some eulogiums on the argument of 'my learned kinsman.' Richard had 
made a good speech and an effective one — no mistake about it — and Fenimore 
must mar it first by needless provoking interruptions, and then by praises 
which, though deserved, were horribly out of place and out of taste. Feni- 
more, my friend, you and I had better abandon the Bar — we are not likely 
either of us to cut much of a figure there. Let us quit before we make our- 
selves ridiculous. 

" His Honor Judge Willard occupied a brief half hour in chargmg the 
Jury. We could not decently appear occupied in taking down this Charge, 
and no one else did it — so we must speak of it with great circumspection. That 
he would go dead against us on the Law of the case we knew right well, from 
his decisions and charges on similar trials before. Not having his Law points 
before us, we shall not venture to speak of them. SuflSce it to say, that 
they were New York Supreme and Circuit Court Law — no better and no worse 
than he has measured off to several editorial culprits before us. They are 
the settled maxims of the Supreme Court of this State in regard to the law 
of libel as applied to Editors and Newspapers, and we must have been a goose 
to expect any better than had been served out to our betters. The Judge 
was hardly, if at all, at liberty to know or tolerate any other. 

******* 

" But we have filled our paper, and must close. The Judge charged very 
hard against us on the facts of the case, as calling for a pretty sizable verdict — 
our legal guilt had of course been settled long before in the Supreme Court. 

"When the Charge commenced, we would not have given Fenimore the 
first red cent for his verdict ; when it closed, we understood that we were 
booked to suffer some. If the Jury had returned a verdict in* our favor, 
the Judge must have been constrained by his charge to set it aside, as 
contrary to law. 

" The Jury retired about half-past two, and the rest of us went to dinner. 
The Jury were hungry too, and did not stay out long. On comparing notes, 
there were seven of them for a verdict of $100, tico for $200, and three for 
$500. They added these sums up— total $2,600— divided by 12, and the 
dividend was a little over $200 ; so they called it $200 damages and six 
cents costs, which of course carries full costs against us. . We went back 
from dinner, took the verdict in all meekness, took a sleigh, and struck a 
bee-line for New York." 



236 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMCRE COOPER. 

"Thus for the Tribune the rub-a-dub is over ; the adze we trust laid asid« j 
the stares all in their places ; the hoops tightly driven ; and the heading not 
particularly out of order. Nothing remains but to pay piper, or cooper, or 
whatever ; and that shall be promptly attended to. 

" Yes, Fenimore shall have his $200. To be sure, we don't exactly see how 
we came to owe him that sum ; but he has won it, and shall be paid. ' The 
court awards it, and the law doth give it.' We should like to meet him and 
have a social chat over the whole business, now it is over. There has been a 
good deal of fun in it, come to look back ; and if he has as little ill-will to- 
ward us as we bear to him, there shall never be another hard thought between 
us. We don't blame him a bit for the whole matter ; he thought we injured 
him, sued us, and got his pay. Since the Jury have cut down his little bill 
from $3,000 to $200, we won't higgle a bit about the balance, but pay it on 
sight. In fact, we rather like the idea of being so munificent a patron (for 
our means) of American Literature ; and are glad to do anything for one of 
the most creditable (of old) of our authors, who are now generally reduced to 
any shift for a living by that grand National rascality and greater folly, the 
denial of International Copyright. ('My pensive public,' don't flatter yourself 
that we are to be rendered mealy-mouthed toward you by our buffeting. We 
shall put it to your iniquities just as straight as a loon's leg, calling a spade 
a spade, and not an oblong garden implement, until the judicial construction 
of the law of libel shall take another hitch, and its penalties be invoked to 
shield communities as well as individuals from censure for their transgressions. 
Till then, keep a bright look out !) 

" And Richard, too, shall have his share of ' the spoils of victory.' He has 
earned them fairly, and, in the main, like a gentleman — making us no need- 
less trouble, and we presume no needless expense. All was fair and above 
board, save some little specks in his opening of the case, which we noticed 
some hours ago, and have long since forgiven. For the rest, we rather like 
what we have seen of him ; and if anybody has any law business in Otsego, or 
any libel suits to prosecute anywhere, we heartily recommend Richard to do 
the work, warranting the client to be handsomely taken in and done for 
throughoulf. (There 's a puff, now, a man may be proud of. We don't give 
such every day out of pure kindness. It was Fenimore, we believe, that said 
on the trial, that our word went a great way in this country.) Can we say a 
good word for you, gallant foeman? We 'U praise any thing of yours we 
have read except the Monikins. 

" But sadder thoughts rush in on us in closing. Our case is well enough, 
or of no moment ; but we cannot resist the conviction that by the result of 
these Cooper libel-suits, and by the Judicial constructions which produce that 
result, the Liberty of the Press — its proper influence and respectability, its 
power to rebuke wrong and to exert a salutary influence upon the Public Mor- 
als is fearfully impaired We do not see how any paper can exist, and speak 



A NEW SUIT. 237 

and act worthily and usefully in this State, without subjecting itself daily to 
innumerable, unjust and crushing prosecutions, and indictments for libel. 
Even if Juries could have nerves of iron to say and do what they really think 
right between man and man, the costs of such prosecution would ruin any 
journal. But the Liberty of the Press has often been compelled to appeal 
from the bench to the people. It will do so now, and we will not doubt with 
success. Let not, then, the wrong-doer who is cunning enough to keep the 
blind side of the law, the swindling banker who has spirited away the means 
of the widow and orphan, the libertine who has dragged a fresh victim to his 
lair, imagine that they are permanently shielded, by this misapplication of 
the law of libel, from fearless exposure to public scrutiny and indignation by 
the eagle gaze of an unfettered Press. Clouds and darkness may for the 
moment rest upon it, but they cannot, in the nature of things, endure. In 
the very gloom of its present humiliation we read the prediction of its speedy 
and certain restoration to its rights and its true dignity — to a sphere not of 
legal sufferance merely, but of admitted usefulness and honor." 

This narrative, which came within three-quarters of a column of 
filling the entire inside of the Tribune, and must have covered fifty 
pages of foolscap, was written at the rate of about a column an 
hour. It set the town laughing, elicited favorable notices from more 
than two hundred papers, and provoked the novelist to new anger, 
and another suit ; in which the damages were laid at three thousand 
dollars. "We have a lively trust, however," said the offending edi- 
tor, " that we shall convince the jury that we do not owe him the 
first red cent of it." This is one paragraph of the new complaint : 

"And the said plaintiff further says and avers that the syllables inhu, fol- 
lowed by a dash, when they occur in the publication hereinafter set forth, as 

follows, to wit, inhu , were meant and intended by the said defendants for 

the word inhuman, and that the said defendants, in using the aforesaid sylla- 
bles, followed by a dash as aforesaid, in connection with the context, intended 
to convey, aiad did convey, the idea that the said plaintiff, on the occasion re- 
ferred to in that part of said publication, had acted in an inhuman manner. 
And the said plaintiff also avers that the syllable ungen, followed by a dash, 

as follows, to wit, ungen , when they occur in the publication hereinafter 

set forth, were meant and intended by the said defendants either for the word 
ungenerous or the word ungentlemanly, and that the said defendants, in using 
the syllables last aforesaid, followed by a dash as aforesaid, in connection with 
the context, intended to convey, and did convey, the idea that the said plain- 
tiff, on the occasion referred to in that part of said publication, had acted 



238 THE TRIBUNE AND J. FENIMORE C OOPER. 

either in a most ungenerous or a most ungentlemanly manner, to wit, at the 
place and in the county aforesaid." 

In an article commenting upon the writ, the editor, after repel- 
ling the charge, that his account of the trial was 'replete with 
errors of fact,' pointedly addressed his distinguished adversary thus : 

" But, Fenimore, do hear reason a minute. This whole business is ridicu 
lous. If you would simply sue those of the Press-gang who displease you, it 
would not be so bad ; but you sue and write too, which is not the fair thing. 
What use in belittling the profession of Literature by appealing from its 
courts to those of Law 7 We ought to litigate upward, not down. Now, Fen- 
imore, you push a very good quill of your own except when you attempt to 
be funny — there you break down. But in the way of cutting and slashing you 
are No. one, and you don't seem averse to it either. Then why not settle 
this difference at the point of the pen 1 We hereby tender you a column a 
day of The Tribune for ten days, promising to publish verbatim whatever you 
may write and put your name to — and to publish it in both our daily and 
weekly papers. You may give your view of the whole controversy between 
yourself and the Press, tell your story of the Ballston Trial, and cut us up to 
your heart's content. We will further agree not to write over two columns in 
reply to the whole. Now why is not this better than invoking the aid of John 
Doe and Richard Roe (no offense to Judge W. and your ' learned kinsman !') 
in the premises? Be wise, now, most chivalrous antagonist, and don't detract 
from the dignity of your profession !" 

Mr. Cooper, we may infer, 'became wise ; for the suit never came 
to trial ; nor did he accept the Tribune's offer of a column a day 
for ten days. For one more editorial article on the subject room 
must be afforded, and with that, our chapter on the Cooperage of 
the Tribune may have an end. 

"Our friend Fenimore Cooper, it will be remembered, chivalrously declared, 
in his summing up at Ballston, that if we were to sue him for a libel in assert- 
ing our personal uncomeliness, he should nc i plead the General Issue, but 
Justify. To a plain man, this would seem an easy and safe course. But let 
us try it : Fenimore has the audacity to say we are not handsome ; we employ 
Richard — we presume he has no aversion to a good fee, even if made of the 
Editorial * sixpences ' Fenimore dilated on — and commence our action, laying 
the venue in St. Lawrence, Alleghany, or some other county where our personal 
appearance is not notorious ; and, if the Judge should be a friend of ours, so 
much the better. Well : Fenimore boldly pleads Justijkation, thinking it as 
easy aa not. But how is he to establish it 1 We of course should not be so 



AN IMAGINARY CASE. 239 

green as to attend the Trial in person in such an issue— no man is obliged to 
make out his adversary's case — but would leave it all to Richard, and the 
help the Judge might properly give him. So the case is on, and Fenimore 
undertakes the Justification, which of course admits and aggravates the libel ; 
60 our side is all made out. But let us see how he gets along : of course, he 
will not think of offering witnesses to swear point-blank that we are homely — 
that, if he did not know it, the Judge would soon tell him would be a simple 
opinion, which would not do to go to a Jury ; he must present facts. 

" Fenimore. — ' Well, then, your Honor, I offer to prove by this witness that 
the plaintiff is tow-headed, and half bald at that ; he is long-legged, gaunt, 
and most cadaverous of visage — ergo, homely.' 

^^ Judge.— How does that follow'? Light hair and fair face bespeak a 
purely Saxon ancestry, and were honorable in the good old days : I rule that 
they are comely. Thin locks bring out the phrenological developments, you 
see, and give dignity and Caassiveness to the aspect ; and as to slenderness, 
what do our dandies lace for if that is not graceful 7 They ought to know 
what is attractive, I reckon. No, sir. your proof is irrelevant, and I rule it 
out.' 

^^ Fenimore (the sweat starting). — 'Well, your Honor, I have evidence to 
prove the said plaintiff slouching in dress ; goes bent like a hoop, and so rock- 
ing in gait that he walks down both sides of a street at once.' 

^^ Judge. — ' That to prove homeliness 7 I hope you don't expect a man of 
ideas to spend his precious time before a looking-glass 7 It would be robbing 
the public. "Bent," do you say 7 Isn't the curve the true line of beauty, 
I 'd like to know 7 Where were you brought up 7 As to walking, you don't 
expect " a man of mark," as you called him at Ballston, to be quite as dapper 
and pert as a footman, whose walk is his hourly study and his nightly dream 
— its perfection the sum of his ambition ! Great ideas of beauty you must 
have ! That evidence won't answer.' 

"Now, Fenimore, brother in adversity ! wouldn't you begin to have a re- 
alizing sense of your awful situation 7 Would n't you begin to wish yourself 
somewhere else, and a great deal further, before you came into Court to jus- 
tify legally an opinion 7 Wouldn't you begin to perceive that the application 
of the Law of Libel in its strictness to a mere expression of opinion is absurdj 
mistaken, and tyrannical ? 

" Of course, we shan't take advantage of your exposed and perilous condi- 
tion, for we are meek and forgiving, with a hearty disrelish for the machinery 
of the law. But if we had a mind to take hold of you, with Richard to help 
us, and the Supreme Court's ruling in actions of libel at our back, would n'-t 
J ou catch it 7 We should get the whole Fund back again, and give a dinner 
to the numerous Editorial contributors. That dinner would be worth attend- 
ing, Fenimore ; and we '11 warrant the jokes to average a good deal better than 
those you cracked in your speech at Ballston." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE TEIBUNE CONTINUES. 

The Special Express system— Night adventures of Enoch Ward— Gig Express— Ex 
press from Halifax— Baulked by the snow-drifts -Party warfare then— Books pub 
lished by Greeley and McElrath— Course of the Tribune— The Editor travels- 
Scenes in Washington— An incident of travel— Clay and Frelinghuysen- The exer- 
tions of Horace Greeley— Results of th& defeat— The Tribune and Slavery— Burn- 
ing of the Tribune Building— The Editor's reflections upon the fire. 

"What gunpowder, improved fire-arms, and drilling have done for 
war, the railroad and telegraph have done for the daily press, 
namely, reduced success to an affair of calculation and expenditure. 
Twelve years ago, there was a chance for the display of individual 
enterprise, daring, prowess, in procuring news, and, ahove all, in he- 
ing the first to announce it ; which was, is, and ever will be, the 
point of competition with daily papers. Those were the days of 
the Special Expresses, which appear to have been run, regardless 
of expense, horseflesh, and safety, and in the running of which in- 
credible things were achieved. Not reporters alone were then 
sent to remote places to report an expected speech. The reporters 
were accompanied, sometimes, by a rider, sometimes by a corps of 
printers with fonts of type, who set up the speech on the special 
steamboat as fast as the reporters could write it out, and had ifc 
ready for the press before the steamboat reached the city. "Wonder- 
ful things were done by special express in those days ; for the com- 
petition between the rival papers was intense beyond description. 

Take these six paragraphs from the Tribune as the sufficient and 
striking record of a state of things long past away. They need no 
explanation or connecting remark. Perhaps they will astonish the 
young reader rather : 

" The Governor's Message reached "Wall street last evening, at nine. The 
contract was for three riders and ten relays of horses, and the Express was to 
Btaxt at 12 o'clock, M., and reach this city at 10 in the evening. It is not 



THE SPECIAL EXPRESS SYSTEM. 241 

known here whether the arrangements at the other end of the route were 
strictly adhered to ; but if they were, and the Express started at tho hour 
agreed upon, it came through in nine hours, making but a fraction less than 
eighteen miles an hour, which seems almost incredible. It is not impossible 
that it started somewhat before the time agreed upon, and quite likely that ex- 
tra riders and horses were employed ; but be that as it may, the dispatch is 
almost — if not quite — unparalleled in this country." 



" Our express, (Mr. Enoch Ward,) with returns of the Connecticut Election, 
left New Haven Monday evening, in a light sulky, at twenty-five minutes be- 
fore ten o'clock, having been detained thirty-five minutes by the non-arrival 
of the Express locomotive from Hartford. He reached Stamford — forty miles 
from New Haven — in three hours. Here it commenced snowing, and the night 
was so exceedingly dark that he could not travel without much risk. He kept 
on, however, with commendable zeal, determined not to be conquered by any 
ordinary obstacles. Just this side of New Rochelle, and while descending a 
hill, he had the misfortune to run upon a horse which was apparantly stand- 
ing still in the road. The horse was mounted by a man who must have been 
asleep ; otherwise he would have got out of the way. The breast of the horse 
came in contact with tbe sulky between the wheel and the shaft. The efiect 
of the concussion was to break the wheel of the sulky by wrenching out nearly 
all the spokes. The night was so dark that nothing whatever could be seen, 
and it is not known whether the horse and the stranger received any material 
injury. Mr. Ward then took the harness from his horse, mounted him with- 
out a saddle, and came on to this city, a distance of seventeen miles, arriving 
at five o'clock on Tuesday morning." 



" It will be recollected that a great ado was made upon the receipt in this 
city of the Acadia's news by two of our journals, inasmuch as no other paper 
received the advices, one of them placarding the streets with announcements 
that the news was received by special and exclusive express. Now, the facts 
are these : The Acadia arrived at Boston at half-past three o'clock, the cars 
leaving at four ; in coming to her wharf she struck her bow against the dock 
and immediately reversed her wheels, put out again into the bay, and did 
not reach her berth until past four. But two persons, belonging to the offices 
of the Atlas and Times, jumped on board at the moment the ship struck the 
wharf, obtained their packages, and threw them into the water, whence they 
were taken and put into a gig and taken to the depot. ' Thus,' said the Com- 
mercial, from which we gather the facts stated above ' the gig was the " Spe- 
cial Express," and its tremendous run was from Long Wharf to the depot — 
about one mile !' " 

" The news by the next steamer is looked for with intense interest, and in 

11 



242 THE TRIBUNE Cdi^TINUES. 

order to place it before our readers at an early moment, we made arrange- 
ments some weeks since to start a horse Express from Halifax across Nova 
Scotia to the Bay of Fundy, there to meet a powerful steamer which will 
convey our Agent and Messenger to Portland. At the latter place we run 
a Locomotive Express to Boston, whence we express it by steam and horse- 
power to New York. Should no unforeseen accident occur, we will be enabled 
by this Express to publish the news in New York some ten, or perhaps fifteen 
or twenty hours before the arrival of the steamer in Boston. The extent of 
this enterprise may in part be judged of by the fact, that we pay no less than 
Eighteen Hundred Dollars for the single trip of the steamer on the Bay of 
Fundy ! It is but fair to add that, in this Express, we were joined from the 
commencement by the Sun of this city, and the North American of Phila- 
delphia ; and the Journal of Commerce has also since united with us in the 
enterprise." 

" "We were beaten with the news yesterday morning, owing to circumstances 
which no human energy could overcome. In spite of the great snow-storm, 
which covered Nova Scotia with drifts several feet high, impeding and often 
overturning our express-sleigh — in defiance of hard ice in the Bay of Fundy 
and this side, often 18 inches thick, through which our steamboat had to plow 
her way — we brought the news through to Boston in thirty-one hours from 
Halifax, several hours ahead of the Cambria herself. Thence it ought to have 
reached this city by 6 o'clock yesterday morning, in ample season to have 
gone south in the regular mail train. It was delayed, however, by unforeseen 
and unavoidable disasters, and only reached New Haven after it should have 
been in this city. From New Haven it was brought hither in four hours and 
a halfhj our ever-trusty rider, Enoch Ward, who never lets the grass grow to 
the heels of his horses. He came in a little after 11 o'clock, but the rival ex- 
press had got in over two hours earlier, having made the shortest run from 
Boston on record." 



" The Portland Bulletin has been unintentionally led into the gross error of 
believing the audacious fabrication that Bennett's express came through to 
this city in seven hours and five minutes from Boston, beating ours^ye or six 
hours ! That express left Boston at 11 P. M. of Wednesday, and arrived here 
20 minutes past 9 on Thursday — actual time on the road, over ten hours. The 
Bulletin further says that our express was sixteen hours on the road. No such 
thing. We lost some fifteen minutes at the ferry on the east side of Boston. 
Then a very short time (instead of an hour and a half, as is reported by the 
express) in finding our agent in Boston ; then an hour in firing up an engine and 
getting away from Boston, where all should have been ready for us, but was not. 
The locomotive was over two hours in making the run to Worcester — 42 miles — 
though the Herald runner who came through on the arrival of the Cambria 



PARTY WARFARE THEN. 243 

gome time after, was carried over it in about half the time, with not one-fourth 
the delay we encountered at the depot in Boston. (We could guess how all 
this was brought about, but it would answer no purpose now.) At Worcester, 
Mr. Twitchell (whom our agent on this end had only been able to find on 
Tuesday, having been kept two days on the route to Boston by a storm, and 
then finding Mr. T. absent in New Hampshire) was found in bed, but got up 
and put ofi", intending to ride but one stage. At its end, however, he found 
the rider he had hired sick, and had to come along himself. At one stopping- 
place, he found his horse amiss, and had to buy one before he could proceed. 
When he reached Hartford (toward morning) there was no engine fired up, no 
one ready, and another hour was lost there. At New Haven our rider was 
asleep, and much time was lost in finding him and getting off. Thus we lost 
in delays which we could not foresee or prevent over three hours this side of 
Boston ferry, — the Cambria having arrived two or three days earlier than she 
yas expected, before our arrangements could be perfected, and on the only 
night of the week that the rival express could have beaten even our bad time, 
— the Long Island Railroad being obstructed with snow both before and after- 
ward. The Herald express came in at 20 minutes past 9 ; our express was 
here at 15 minutes past 12, or less than three hours afterward. Such are 
the facts. The express for the U. S. Gazette crossed the ferry to Jersey City 
at 10| instead of 11^, as we mis-stated recently." 



That will do for the curiosities of the Special Express. Another 
feature has vanished from the press of this country, since those 
paragraphs were written. The leading journals are no longer party 
journals. There are no parties ; and this fact has changed the look, 
and tone, and manner of newspapers in a remarkable degree. As 
a curiosity of old-fashioned party politics, and as an illustration of 
the element in which and with which our hero was compelled oc- 
casionally to labor, I am tempted to insert here a few paragraphs 
of one of his day-of-the-election articles. Think of the Tribune of 
to-day^ and judge of the various progress it and the country have 
made, since an article like the following could have seemed at home 
in its columns. 

THE WARDS ARE AWAKE! 

" OLD FIRST ! Steady and true ! A split on %ien has aroused her to 
bring out her whole force, which will tell nobly on the Mayor. Friends ! fight 
out your Collector, split fairly, like men, and be good friends as ever at sunset 
to-day ; but be sure not to throw away your Assistant Alderman. Wo set 
you down 600 for Robert Smith. 



244 THE TRIBUNE CONTINUES. 

" SAUCY SECOND ! Never a Loco ha^ a look here ! Our friends are uni- 
ted, and have done their work, though making no noise about it. We count 
on 400 for Smith. 

" GALLANT THIKD ! You are wanted for the full amount ! Things are 
altogether too sleepy here. Why won't somebody run stump, or get up a 
volunteer ticket? We see that the Loco-Foco Collector has Whig ballots 
printed with his name on them ! This ought to arouse all the friends of the 
clean Whig Ticket. Come out, Whigs of the Third ! and pile up 700 major- 
ity for Robert Smith ! One less is unworthy of you ; and you can give more 
if you try. But let it go at 700." 

********* 

" BLOODY SIXTH ! We won 't tell all we hope from this ward, but we 
know Aid. Crolius is popular, as is Owen W. Brennan, our Collector, and 
we feel quite sure of their election. We know that yesterday the Locos were 
afraid Shaler would decline, as they said his friends would vote for Crolius 
rather than Emmons, who is rather too well known. We concede 300 major- 
ity to Morris, but our friends can reduce it to 200 if they work right." 

" EMPIRE EIGHTH ! shall your faithful Gedney be defeated 1 Has he 
not deserved better at your hands 1 And Sweet, too, he was foully cheated 
out of his election last year by Loco-Foco fire companies brought in from the 
Fifteenth, and prisoners imported from Blackwell's Island. Eighteen of them 
in one house ! You owe it to your candiates to elect them — you owe it still 
more to yourselves — and yet your Collector quarrel makes us doubt a little. 
Whigs of the Eighth ! resolve to carry your Alderman and you will ! Any 
how, Robert Smith will have a majority — we '11 state it moderately at 200." 
******** 

*' BLOOMING TWELFTH ! The Country Ward is steadily improving, po- 
litically as well as physically. The Whigs run their popular Alderman of 
last year ; the Locos have made a most unpopular Ticket, which was only 
forced down the throats of many by virtue of the bludgeon. Heads were 
cracked like walnuts the night the ticket was agreed to. We say 50 for 
Smith, and the clean Whig ticket." 

******** 

<' Whigs of New York! The day is yours if you will! But if you 
stulk to your chimney corners and let such a man as Robert Smith be 
beaten by Robert H. Morris, you will deserve to be cheated, plundered and 
trampled on as you have been. But, No ! you will not ! On for Smith 
ANU Victory !" 

"We now turn over, with necessary rapidity, the pages of the 
third and fourth vohimes of the Tribune, pausing, here and there, 
when something of interest respecting its editor catches our eye. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY GREELEY AND McELRATH. 24Ti 

Greeley and McElrath, we observe, are engaged, somewhat exten- 
sively, in the business of publishing books. The Whig almanac ap- 
pears every year, and sells from fifteen to twenty thousand copies. 
It contains statistics without end, and much literature of what may 
be called the Franklin School — short, practical articles on agricul- 
ture, economy, and morals. ' Travels on the Prairies,' Ellsworth's 
'Agricultural Geology,' 'Lardner's Lectures,' 'Life and Speeches of 
Henry Clay,' 'Tracts on the Tariff' by Horace Greeley, ' The Farm- 
ers' Library,' are among the works published by Greeley and McEl- 
rath in the years 1843 and 1844. The business was not profitable, 
I believe, and gradually the firm relinquished all their publications, 
except only the Tribune and Almanac. September 1st, 1843, the 
Evening Tribune began; the Semi-"Weekly, May I7th, 1845. 

Carlyle's Past and Present, one of the three or four Great Books 
of the present generation, was published in May 1843, from a pri- 
vate copy, entrusted to the charge of Mr. R. W. Emerson. The 
Tribune saw its merit, and gave the book a cordial welcome. 
" This is a great book, a noble book," it said, in a second notice, 
" and we take blame to ourself for having rashly asserted, before we 
had read it thoroughly, that the author, keen- sighted at discovering 
Social evils and tremendous in depicting them, was yet blind as to 
their appropriate remedies. He does see and indicate those reme- 
dies — not entirely and in detail, but in spirit and in substance very 
clearly and forcibly. There has no new work of equal practical 
value with this been put forth by any writer of eminence within 
the century. Although specially addressed to and treating of the 
People of England, its thoughts are of immense value and general 
application here, and we hope many thousand copies of the work 
will instantly be put into circulation." 

Later in the year the Tribune introduced to the people of the 
United States, the system of Water-Cure, copying largely from Eu- 
ropean journals, and dilating in many editorial articles on the man- 
ifold and unsuspected virtues of cold water. The Erie Raih-oad— 
that gigantic enterprise — ^liad then and afterwards a powerful friend 
and advocate in the Tribune. In behalf of the unemployed poor, 
the Tribune spuKe wisely, feelingly, and often. To the new Native 
American ParS;, Jt gave no quarter. For Irish Repeal, it fought like 
a ti^gr. For PrL-tection and Clay, it coTild not say enough. Upon 



246 THE TRIBUNE CONTINUES. 

farmers it urged the duty and policy of high farming. To the strong 
unemployed young men of cities, it said repeatedly and in various 
terms, ' Go forth into the Fields and Labor with your Hands.' 

In the autumn, Mr, Greeley made a tour of four weeks in the Far 
West, and wrote letters to the Tribune descriptive and- suggestive. 
In December, lie spent a few days in "Washington, and gave a sorry 
account of the state of things in that ' magnificent mistake.' 

"To a new comer," he wrote, " the Capitol wears an imposing appearance : 
Nay, more. Let him view it for the first time by daylight, with the flag of 
the Union floating proudly above it, (indicating that Congress is in session,) 
and, if he be an American, I defy him to repress a swelling of the heart — a 
glow of enthusiastic feeling. Under these free-flowing Stripes and Stars the 
Representatives of the Nation are assembled in Council — under the emblem 
of the National Sovereignty is in action the collective energy and embodiment 
of that Sovereignty. Proud recollections of beneficent and glorious events 
come thronging thickly upon him — of the Declaration of Independence, the 
struggles of the Revolution, and the far more glorious peaceful advances of 
the eagles of Freedom from the Alleghanies to the Falls of St, Anthony and 
the banks of the Osage. An involuntary cheer rushes from his heart to his 
lips, and he hastens at once to the Halls of Legislation to witness and listen 
to the displays of patriotic foresight, wisdom and eloquence, there evolved. 

"But here his raptures are chilled instanter. Entering the Capitol, he 
finds its passage a series of blind, gloomy, and crooked labyrinths, through 
which a stranger threads his devious way with difficulty, and not at all with- 
out inquiry and direction, to the door of the Senate or House. Here he is 
met, as everywhere through the edifice, by swarms of superserviceable under- 
lings, numerous as the frogs of Egypt, eager to manifest their official zeal 
and usefulness by keeping him out or kicking him out again. He retires dis> 
gusted, and again threads the bewildering maze to the gallery, where (if of 
the House) he can only look down on the noisy Bedlam in action below him — 
somebody speaking and nobody listening, but a buzz of conversation, the trot- 
ting of boys, the walking about of members, the writing and folding of let- 
ters, calls to order, cries of question, calls for Yeas and Nays, Ac, give him 
large opportunities for headache, meagre ones for edification. Half an hour 
will usually cure him of all passion for listening to debates in the House. '^i 
There are, of course, occasions when it is a privilege to be here, but I speak of 
the general scene and impression. 

" To-day, but more especially yesterday, a deplorable spectacle has been 
presented here — a glaring exemplification of the terrible growth and difi"usion 
of office-begging. The Loco-Foco House has ordered a clean sweep of all its 
underlings — door-keepers, porters, messengers, wood-carriers, &c., &o. I care 



AN INCIDENT OF TRAVEL. 247 

nothing for this, so far as the turned-out are concerned — let them earn a 
living, like other folks — but the swarms of aspirants that invaded every avenue 
and hall of the Capitol, making doubly hideous the dissonance of its hundred 
echoes, were dreadful to contemplate. Here were hundreds of young boys, 
from twenty down to twelve years of age, deep in the agonies of this debasing 
game, ear-wigging and button-holding, talking of the services of their fathers 
or brothers to 'the party,' and getting members to intercede for them with the 
appointing power. The new door-keeper was in distraction, and had to hide 
behind the Speaker's chair, where he could not be hunted except by proxy. 
******* 

" The situation of the lowest post of clerks in the departments and other 
subordinate office-holders here is deplorable. No matter what are their re- 
spective salaries, the great mass of them are always behind-hand and getting 
more so. When one is dismissed from office, he has no resource, and no 
ability to wait for any, and considers himself, not unnaturally, a ruined man. 
He usually begs to be reinstated, and his wife writes or goes to the Presi- 
dent or Secretary to cry him back into place with an ' ower-true tale' of a 
father without hope and children without bread ; if repulsed, their prospect 
is dreary indeed. Where office is the sole resource,'%nd its retention depend- 
ent on another's interest or caprice, there is no slave so pitiable as the 
officer. 

" Of course, where every man's livelihood is dependent on a game of chance 
and intrigue, outright gambling is frightfully prevalent. This city is full of 
it in every shape, from the flaunting lottery-office on every corner to the 
secret card-room in every dark recess. Many who come here for office lose 
their last cent in these dens, and have to borrow the means of getting away. 
Such is Washington." 

One incident of travel, and we turn to the next volume. It oc- 
curred on ' a Sound steamboat' in the year of our Lord, 1843 : 

*' Two cleanly, well-behaved black men, who had just finished a two years' 
term of service to their country on a ship-of-war, were returning from Boston 
to their homes in this city. They presented their tickets, showing that they 
had paid full passage through at Boston, and requested berths. But there 
was no place provided for blacks on the boat ; they could not be admitted to 
the common cabin, and the clerk informed them that they must walk the deck 
all night, returning them seventy-five cents of their passage -money. We 
saw the captain, and remonstrated on their behalf, and were convinced that 
the fault was not his. There was no space on the boat for a room specially 
for blacks (which would probably cost $20 for every SI it yielded, as it would 
rarely be required, and he could not put whites into it) ; he had tried to 
make such a room, but could find no place ; and he but a few days before gave 



248 THE TRIBUNE CC^TINUES. 

a berth in the cabin to a decent, cleanly colored man, when the other pas 
sengei'S appointed a committee to wait on him, and tell him that would not 
answer — so he had to turn out the ' nigger' to pace the deck through the 
night, count the slow hours, and reflect on the glorious privilege of living in 
a land of liberty, where Slavery and tyranny are demolished, and all men are 
free and equal ! 

" Such occurrences as this might make one ashamed of Human Nature. 
We do not believe there is a steamboat in the South where a negro passing a 
night upon it would not have found a place to sleep." 

The year 1844 was the year of Clay and Frelinghuysen, Polk aiid 
Dallas, the year of Nativism and the Philadelphia riots, the year 
of delirious hope and deep despair, the year that finished one era of 
politics and began another, the year of Margaret Fuller and the 
burning of the Tribune office, the year when Horace Greeley show- 
ed his friends how hard a man can work, how little he can sleep, 
and yet live. The Tribune began its fourth volume on the tenth of 
April, enlarged one-third in size, with new type, and a modest flour- 
ish of trumpets. It returned thanks to the public for the liberal 
support which had been extended to it from the beginning of its 
career. " Our gratitude," said the editor, " is the deeper from our 
knowledge that many of the views expressed through our columns 
are unacceptable to a large proportion of our readers. We know 
especially that our advocacy of measures intended to meliorate the 
social condition of the toiling millions (not the purpose, but the 
means), our ardent sympathy with the people of Ireland in their 
protracted, arduous, peaceful struggle to recover some portion of 
the common rights of man, and our opposition to the legal extinc- 
tion of human life, are severally or collectively regarded with ex- 
treme aversion by many of our steadfast patrons, whose liberality 
and confidence is gratefully appreciated." To the Whig party, of 
which it was " not an organ, but an humble advocate," its '' obliga- 
tions were many and profound." The Tribune, in fact, had become 
the leading "Whig paper of the country. 

Horace Greeley had long set his heart upon the election of Henry 
Clay to the presidency ; and for some special reasons besides the 
general one of his belief that the policy identified with the name 
of Henry Clay was the true policy of the government. Henry Clay 
was one of the heroes of his boyhood's admiration. Yet, in 1.840 



CLAY AND FRELINGHUYSEN. 2-19 

believing that Clay* could not be elected, lie had used his influence 
to promote the nomination of Gen. Harrison. Then came the death 
of the president, the ' apostasy' of Tyler, and his pitiful attempts to 
secure a re-election. The annexation of Texas loomed up in the 
distance, and the repeal of the tariff of 1842. For these and other 
reasons, Horace Greeley was inflamed with a desire to behold once 
more the triumph of his party, and to see the long career of the 
eminent Kentuckian crowned with its suitable, its coveted reward. 
For this he labored as few men have ever labored for any but per- 
sonal objects. He attended the convention at Baltimore that nomi- 
nated the Whig candidates — one of the largest (and quite the most 
excited) political assemblages that ever were gathered in this coun- 
try. During the summer, he addressed political meetings three, 
four, five, six times a week. He travelled far and wide, advising, 
speaking, and in every way urging on the cause. He wrote, on an 
average, four columns a day for the Tribune. He answered, on an 
average, twenty letters a day. He wrote to such an extent that his 
right arm broke out into biles, and, at one time, there were twenty 
between the wrist and the elbow. He lived, at that time, four miles 
and a half from the office, and many a hot night he protracted his 
labors till the last omnibus had gone, and he was obliged to trudge 
wearily home, after sixteen hours of incessant and intense exertion. 
The whigs were very confident. They were mre of victory. But 
Horace Greeley knew the country better. If every Whig had worked 
as he worked, how difierent had been the result ! how difierent the 
subsequent history of the country ! how difi'erent its future ! We 
had had no annexation of Texas, m> Mexican war, no tinkering of 
the tariff to keep the nation provincially dependent on Europe, no 
Fugitive Slave Law, no Pierce, no Douglas, no Nebraska ! 

The day before the election, the Tribune had a paragraph which 
shows how excited and how anxious its editor was : " Give to-mor- 
row," he said, " entirely to your country. Grudge her not a mo- 
ment of the daylight. Let not a store or shop be opened — nobody 
can want to trade or work till the contest is decided. It needs 
every man of us, and our utmost exertions, to save the City, the 
State, and the Union. A tremendous responsibiHty rests upon us 
— an electrifying victory or calamitous defeat awaits us. Two days 
only are before us. Action ! Action !" On the morning of the de- 

II* 



250 THE TRIBUNE CONTINUES. 

cisive day, he said, " Don't mind the rain. It may be bad weather, 
but nothing to what the election of Polk would bring upon us. 
Let no Whig be deterred by rain from doing his whole duty ! Who 
values his coat more than his country?" 

All in vain. The returns came in slowly to what they now do. 
The result of a presidential election is now known in New York 
within a few hours of the closing of the polls. But then it was 
three days before the whigs certainly knew that Harry of the West 
had been beaten by Polk of Tennessee, before Americans knew that 
their voice in the election of president was not the controlling one. 

" Each morning," said the Tribune, a few days after the result 
was known, " convincing proofs present themselves of the horrid 
effects of Loco-focoism, in the election of Mr. Polk. Yesterday it 
was a countermanding of orders for ^8000 worth of stoves ; to-day 
the Pittsburg Gazette says, that two Scotch gentlemen who arrived 
in that city last June, with a capital of £12,000. which they wished 
to invest in building a large factory for the manufacture of woolen 
fabrics, left for Scotland, when they learnt that the Anti-Tariff 
champion was elected. They will return to the rough hills of Scot- 
land, build a factory, and pour their goods into this country when 
Polk and his break-down party shall consummate their political 
iniquity. These are the small first-fruits of Polk's election, the 
younglings of the flock, — mere hints of the confusion and difficul- 
ties which will rush down in an overwhelming flood, after the Polk 
machine gets well in motion." 

The election of Polk and Dallas changed the tone of the Tribune 
on one important subject. Until the threatened annexation of Texas, 
which the result of this election made a certainty, the Tribune had 
meddled little with the question of slavery. To the silliness of 
elavery as an institution, to its infinite absurdity and impolicy, to 
the marvelous stupidity of the South in clinging to it with such 
pertinacity, Horace Greeley had always been keenly alive. But he 
had rather deprecated the agitation of the subject at the North, 
as tending to the needless irritation of the southern mind, as more 
likely to rivet than to unloose the shackles of the slave. It was 
not till slavery became aggressive, it was not till the machinery of 
politics was moved but with the single purpose of adding slave 
States to the Union, slave members to Congress, that the Tribune 



BURNING OF THE TRIBUNE BUILDING. 253 

assumed an attitude of hostility to the South, and its pet Blunder. 
To a southerner who wrote about this time, inquiring what right the 
North had to intermeddle with slavery, the Tribune replied, that 
" when we find the Union on the brink of a most unjust and rapa- 
cious war, instigated wholly (as is officially proclaimed) by a deter- 
mination to uphold and fortify Slavery, then we do not see how it 
can longer be rationally disputed that the North has much, very 
much, to do with Slavery. If we may be drawn in to fight for it, 
it would be hard indeed that we should not be allowed to talk of 
it." Thenceforth, the Tribune fought the aggressions of the slave 
power, inch by inch. 

The Tribune continued on its way, triumphant in spite of the 
loss of the election, till the morning of Feb. 5th, 1845, when it had 
the common New York experience of being burnt out. It shall 
tell its own story of the catastrophe : 

" At 4 o'clock, yesterday morning, a boy in our employment entered our 
publication office, as usual, and kindled a fire in the stove for the day, after 
which he returned to the mailing-room below, and resumed folding news- 
papers. Half an hour afterward a clerk, who slept on the counter of the publi- 
cation office, was awoke by a sensation of heat, and found the room in flames. 
He escaped with a slight scorching. A hasty effort was made by two or three 
persons to extinguish the fire by casting water upon it, but the fierce wind 
then blowing rushed in as the doors were opened, and drove the flames through 
the building with inconceivable rapidity. Mr. Graham and our clerk, Robert M. 
Streby, were sleeping in the second story, until awakened by the roar of the 
flames, their room being full of smoke and fire. The door and stairway being 
on fire, they escaped with only their night-clothes, by jumping from a rear 
window, each losing a gold watch, and Mr. Graham nearly $500 in cash, which 
was in his pocket-book under his pillow. Robert was somewhat cut in the 
face, on striking the ground, but not seriously. In our printing-office, fifth 
story, two compositors were at work making up the Weekly Tribune for the 
press, and had barely time to escape before the stairway was in flames. In 
the basement our pressmen were at work on the Daily Tribune of the morn- 
ing, and had printed about three-fourths of the edition. The balance of course 
went with everything else, including a supply of paper, and tho Weekly Tri- 
bune, printed on one side. A few books were hastily caught up and saved, but 
nothing else — not even the daily form, on which the pressmen were working. 
So complete a destruction of a daily newspaper office was never known. From 
the editorial rooms, not a paper was saved ; and, besides all the editor's own 



252 THE TIIIBUNE CONTINUES. 

manuscripts, correspondence, and collection of valuable books, Si>me manu- 
scripts belonging to friends, of great value to them, are gone. 

" Our loss, so far as money can replace it, is about $18,000, of wbich $10,000 
•was covered by insurance. The loss of property which insurance would not 
cover, we feel more keenly. If our mail-books come out whole from our Sala- 
mander safe, now buried among the burning ruins, we shall be gratefully 
content. 

" It is usual on such occasions to ask, ' Why were you not fully insured 7' 
It was impossible, from the nature of our business, that we should be so ; and 
no man could have imagined that such an establishment, in which men were 
constantly at work night and day, could be wholly consumed by fire. There 
has not been another night, since the building was put up, when it could have 
been burned down, even if deliberately fired for that purpose. But when this 
fire broke out, under a strong gale and snow-storm of twenty-four hours' con- 
tinuance, which had rendered the streets impassable, it was well-nigh impos- 
sible to drag an engine at all. Some of them could not be got out of their 
houses ; others were dragged a few rods and then given up of necessity ; and 
those which reached the fire found the nearest hydrant frozen up, and only to 
be opened with an axe. Meantime, the whole building was in a blaze." 

The mail books were saved in the ' roasted Herring.' The pro- 
prietors of the morning papers, even those most inimical, editorial- 
ly, to the Tribune, placed their superfluous materials at its disposal. 
An office was hired temporarily. Type was borrowed and bought. 
All hands worked 'with a will.' The paper appeared the next 
morning at the usual hour, and the number was one of the best of 
that volume. In three months, the office was rebuilt on improved 
plans, and provided with every facility then known for the issue of 
a daily paper. These were Mr. Greeley's ' Eeflections over the Fire,* 
published a few days after its occurrence: 

" We have been called, editorially, to scissor out a great many fires, both 
small and great, and have done so with cool philosophy, not reflecting how 
much to some one man the little paragraph would most assuredly mean. The 
late complete and summary burning up of our office, licked up clean as it was 
by the red flames, in a few hours, has taught us a lesson on this head. Aside 
from all pecuniary loss, how great is the suffering produced by a fire ! A hun- 
dred little articles of no use to any one save the owner, things that people 
would look at day after day, and see nothing in, that we ourselves have con- 
templated with cool indifference, now that they are irrevocably destroyed, 
come up in the shape of reminiscences, and seem as if they had been worth 
their weight in gola. 



MARGARET FULLER. 25S 

"We would not indulge in unnecessary sentiment, but even the old desk ai 
■ which we sat, the ponderous inkstand, the familiar faces of files of Correspond- 
ence, the choice collection of pamphlets, the unfinished essay, the charts by 
which we steered — can they all have vanished, never more to be seen ? Truly 
your fire makes clean work, and is, of all executive oflBcers, super-eminent. 
Perhaps that last choice batch of letters may be somewhere on file ; we are 
almost tempted to cry, ' Devil ! find it up !' Poh ! it is a mere cinder now ; 

some 

" • Fathoms deep my letter lies ; 
Of its lines is tinder made.' 

*• No Arabian tale can cradle a wilder fiction, or show better how altogether 
illusory life is. Those solid walls of brick, those five decent stories, those 
steep and difficult stairs, the swinging doors, the Sanctum, scene of many a 
deep political drama, of many a pathetic tale, utterly whiffed out, as one sum- 
marily snuflfs out a spermaceti on retiring for the night. And all perfectly 
true. 

" One always has some private satisfaction in his own particular misery. 
Consider what a night it was that burnt us out, that we were conquered by 
the elements, went up in flames heroically on the wildest, windiest, stormiest 
night these dozen years, not by any fault of human enterprise, but fairly con- 
quered by stress of weather ; — there was a great flourish of trumpets at all 
events. 

" And consider, above all, that Salamander safe ; how, after all, the fire, as- 
sisted by the elements, only came off second best, not being able to reduce that 
safe into ashes. That is the streak of- sunshine through the dun wreaths of 
smoke, the combat of human ingenuity against the desperate encounter of the 
seething heat. But those boots, and Webster's Dictionary — well ! we were 
handsomely whipped there, we acknowledge." 



CHAPTER XX. 

MAKGARET FULLEE. 

Her writuigs In the Tribune— She resides with Mr. Greeley— His narrative— Dietetic 
Sparring— Her manner of writing— Woman's Rights— Her generosity— Her inde- 
pendence—Her love of children— Margaret and Pickie— Her opinion of Mr. Gree- 
ley— Death of Pickie. 

Margaret Fuller's first article in the Tribune, a review of Em- 
erson's Essays, appeared on the seventh of December, 1844 ; her 



254 MARGARET FULLER. 

last, "Farewell to New York," was published August 1st, 1846, on 
the eve of her departure for Europe. From Europe, however, she 
sent many letters to the Tribune, and continued occasionally, though 
at ever-increasing intervals, to correspond with the paper down 
nearly to the time of her embarkation for her native land in 1850. 

During the twenty months of her connection with the Tribune, 
she wrote, on an average, three articles a week. Many of them 
were long and elaborate, extending, in several instances, to three and 
four columns ; and, as they were Essays upon authors, rather than 
Eeviews of Books, she indulged sparingly in extract. Among her 
literary articles, we observe essays upon Milton, Shelley, Carlyle, 
George Sand, the countess Hahn Hahn, Sue, Balzac, Charles Wes- 
ley, Longfellow, Richter, and other magnates. She wrote, also, a 
few musical and dramatic critiques. Among her general contribu- 
tions, were essays upon the Rights, "Wrongs, and Duties of Women, 
a defence of the ' Irish Character,' articles upon ' Christmas,' ' New 
Year's Day,' ' French Gayety,' ' the Poor Man,' ' the Rich Man^' 
' What fits a man to be a Yoter ' — genial, fresh, and suggestive 
essays all. Her defence of the Irish character was very touching 
and just. Her essay on George Sand was discriminating and cour- 
ageous. She dared to speak of her as * one of the best exponents 
of the difficulties, tlie errors, the weaknesses, and regenerative 
powers of the present epoch.' " Let no man," continued Miss Ful- 
ler, " confound the bold unreserve of Sand with that of those who 
have lost the feeling of beauty and the love of good. With a bleed- 
ing heart and bewildered feet she sought the Truth, and if she lost 
the way, returned as soon as convinced she had done so, but she 
would never hide the fact that she had lost it. ' What God knows 
I dare avow to man,' seems to be her motto. It is impossible not 
to see in her, not only the distress and doubts of the intellect, but 
the temptations of a sensual nature ; but we see, too, the courage of 
a hero, and a deep capacity for religion. The mixed nature, too, 
fits her peculiarly to speak to men so diseased as men are at present. 
They feel she knows their ailment, and, if she finds a cure, it will 
really be by a specific remedy." 

To gire George Sand her due, ten years ago, required more cour- 
Rge in a reviewer than it would now to withhold it. 

Margaret Fuller, in the knowledge of literature, was the most 



SHE RESIDES WITH MlFi. Giv'EELET. 255 

learned -womaii of her country, perhaps of her time. Her under- 
Btanding was greater than her gift. She could appreciate, not 
create. She was the noblest victim of that modern error, which 
makes Education and Book-knowledge synonymous terms. Her 
brain was terribly stimulated in childhood by the study of works 
utterly unfit for the nourishment of a child's mind, and in after life, 
it was further stimulated by the adulation of circles who place the 
highest value upon Intelligence, and no value at all upon Wisdom. 
It cost her the best years of her life to unlearn the errors, and to 
overcome the mental habits of her earlier years. But she did it. 
Her triumph was complete. She attained modesty, serenity, disin- 
terestedness, self-control. "The spirit in which we work," says 
Goethe, " is the highest matter." What charms and blesses the 
reader of Margaret Fuller's essays, is not the knowledge they 
convey, nor the understanding they reveal, but the ineffably sweet, 
benign, tenderly humane and serenely high spirit which they 
breathe in every paragraph and phrase. 

During a part of the time of her connection with the Tribune, 
Miss Fuller resided at Mr. Greeley's house, on the banks of the East 
river, opposite the lower end of Blackwell's island. " This place," 
she wrote, "is to me entirely charming; it is so completely in the 
country, and all around is so bold and free. It is two miles or moro 
from the thickly-settled parts of New York, but omnibuses and cars 
give me constant access to the city, and, while I can readily see 
what and whom I will, I can command time and retirement. Stop- 
ping on the Harlem road, you enter a lane nearly a quarter of a 
mile long, and going by a small brook and pond that locks in the 
place, and ascending a slightly rising ground, get sight of the house, 
which, old-fashioned and of mellow tint, fronts on a flower-garden 
filled with shrubs, large vines, and trim box borders. On both 
sides of the house *are beautiful trees, standing fair, full-grown, and 
clear. Passing through a wide hall, you come out upon a piaz- 
za, stretching the whole length of the house, where one can walk in 
all weathers. * * The beauty here, seen by moonlight, is truly 
transporting. I enjoy it greatly, and the genius loci receives me as 
to a home." 

Mr. Greeley has written a singularly interesting account of the 
rise and progress of his friendship with Margaret Fuller, which waa 



256 ' MARGARET FULLER. 

published, a few years ago, in her fascinating memoirs. A man is, 
in a degree, that which he loves to praise ; and. the narrative re- 
ferred to, tells mnch of Margaret Fuller, but more of Horace Gree- 
ley. What^fer else should be omitted from this volume, that should 
not be ; and it is, accordingly, presented here without abridgment. 

" My first acquaintance with Margaret Fuller was made through the pages 
of The Dial. The lofty range and rare ability of that work, and its un- 
American richness of culture and ripeness of thought, naturally filled the 
fit audience, though few,' with a high estimate of those who were known as 
its conductors and principal writers. Yet I do not now remember that any 
article, which strongly impressed me, was recognized as from the pen of its 
female editor, prior to the appearance of 'The Great Law-suit,' afterward 
matured into the volume more distinctively, yet not quite accurately, entitled 
' Woman in the Nineteenth Century.' I think this can hardly have failed to 
make a deep impression on the mind of every thoughtful reader, as the pr®- 
duction of an original, vigorous and earnest mind. ' Summer on the Lakes,' 
which appeared some time after that essay, though before its expansion into a 
book, struck me as less ambitious in its aim, but more graceful and delicate 
in its execution ; and as one of the clearest and most graphic delineations ever 
given of the Great Lakes, of the Prairies, and of the receding barbarism, and 
the rapidly -advancing, but rude, repulsive semi-civilization, which were con- 
tending with most unequal forces for the possession of those rich lands. I 
still consider ' Summer on the Lakes' unequaled, especially in its pictures of 
the Prairies, and of the sunnier aspects of Pioneer life. 

" Yet, it was the suggestion of Mrs. Greeley — who had spent some weeks 
of successive seasons in or near Boston, and who had there made the personal 
acquaintance of Miss Fuller, and formed a very high estimate and warm at- 
tachment for her — that induced me, in the autumn of 1844, to offer her terms, 
which were accepted, for her assistance in the literary department of The 
Tribune. A home in my family was included in the stipulation, I was my 
self barely acquainted with her when she thus came to reside with us, and 1 
did not fully appreciate her nobler qualities for some months afterward 
Though we were members of the same household, we scarcely met save al 
breakfast ; and my time and thoughts were absorbed in duties and cares, 
which left me little leisure or inclination for the amenities of social inter- 
course. Fortune seemed to delight in placing us two in relations of friendly 
antagonism — or rather, to develop all possible contrasts in our ideas and social 
habits. She was naturally inclined to luxury, and a good appearance before 
the world. My pride, if I had any, delighted in bare walls and rugged fare. 
She was addicted to strong tea and coffee, both of which I rejected and con- 
demned, even in the most homoeopathic dilutions ; while, my general health 



MR. GREELEY S NARRATIVE. 257 

being sound, and hers sadly impaired, I could not fail to find in her dietectic 
habits the causes of her almost habitual illness ; and once, while we were 
still barely acquainted, when sho came to the breakfast-table with a very 
severe headache, I was tempted to attribute it to her strong potations of the 
Chinese leaf the night before. She told me quite frankly that she ' declined 
being lectured on the food or beverage she saw fit to take,' which was but 
reasonable in one who had arrived at her maturity of intellect and fixedness 
of habits. So the subject was thenceforth tacitly avoided between us ; but, 
though words were suppressed, looks and involuntary gestures could not sc 
well be ; and an utter divergency of views on this and kindred themes created 
a perceptible distance between us. 

" Her earlier contributions to The Tribune were not her best, and I did not 
at first prize her aid so highly as I afterward learned to do. She wrote always 
freshly, vigorously, but not always clearly ; for her full and intimate ac- 
quaintance with continental literature, especially German, seemed to have 
marred her felicity and readiness of expression in her mother tongue. While 
I never met another woman who conversed more freely or lucidly, the at- 
tempt to commit her thoughts to paper seemed to induce a singular em- 
barrassment and hesitation. She could write only when in the vein, and 
this needed often to be waited for through several days, while the occa- 
sion sometimes required an immediate utterance. The new book must be re- 
viewed before other journals had thoroughly dissected and discussed it, else 
the ablest critique would command no general attention, and perhaps be, by 
the greater number, unread. That the writer should wait the flow of inspira- 
tion, or at least the recurrence of elasticity of spirits and relative health of 
body, will not seem unreasonable to the general reader ; but to the inveterate 
hack-horse of the daily press, accustomed to write at any time, on any sub- 
ject, and with a rapidity limited only by the physical ability to form the re- 
quisite pen-strokes, the notion of waiting for a brighter day, or a happier 
frame of mind, appears fantastic and absurd. He would as soon think of 
waiting for a change in the moon. Hence, while I realized that her contri- 
butions evinced rare intellectual wealth and force, I did not value them as I 
should have done had they been written more fluently and promptly. They 
often seemed to make their appearance ' a day after the fair.' 

" One other point of tacit antagonism between us may as well be noted. 
Margaret was always a most earnest, devoted champion of the Emancipation 
of "Women from their past and present condition of inferiority, to an inde- 
pendence of Men. She demanded for them the fullest recognition of Social 
and Political Equality with the rougher sex ; the freest access to all stations, 
professions, employments, which are open to any. To this demand I heartily 
acceded. It seemed to me, however, that her clear perceptions of abstract 
right were often overborne, in practice, by the influence of education and 
habit ; that while she demanded absolute equality for Woman, she exacted a 



258 MARGAREy FULLER. 

deference and courtesy from men to women, as women, which was entirely in- 
consistent with that requirement. In my view, the equalizing theory can bo 
enforced only by ignoring the habitual discrimination of men and women, as 
forming separate cZasses, and regarding all alike as sim'plj persons, — aS hu- 
man beings. So long as a lady shall deem herself in need of some gentleman's 
jirm to conduct her properly out of a dining or ball-room, — so long as she 
Bhall consider it dangerous or unbecoming to walk half a mile alone by night, 
— I cannot see how the ' Woman's Pdghts ' theory is ever to be anything more 
than a logically defensible abstraction. In this view Margaret did not at all 
concur, and the diversity was the incitement to much perfectly good-natured, but 
nevertheless sharpish sparring between us. Whenever she said or did anything 
implying the usual demand of Woman on the courtesy and protection of Man- 
hood, I was apt, before complying, to look her in the face and exclaim with 
marked emphasis, — quoting from her ' Woman in the Nineteenth Century,' — 
' Let them be sea-captains if they will !' Of course, this was given and 
received as raillery, but it did not tend to ripen our intimacy or quicken my 
esteem into admiration. Though no unkind word ever passed between us, 
nor any approach to one, yet we two dwelt for months under the same roof, as 
scarcely more than acquaintances, meeting once a day at a common board, and 
having certain business relations with each other. Personally, I regarded her 
rather as my wife's cherished friend than as my own, possessing many lofty 
qualities and some prominent weaknesses, and a good deal spoiled by the un- 
measured flattery of her little circle of inordinate admirers. For myself, 
burning no incense on any human shrine, I half-consciously resolved to ' keep 
my eye-beam clear,' and escape the fascination which she seemed to exert 
over the eminent and cultivated persons, mainly women, who came to our 
out-of-the-way dwelling to visit her, and who seemed generally to regard her 
with a strangely Oriental adoration. 

" But as time wore on, and I became inevitably better and better acquaint- 
ed with her, I found myself drawn, almost irresistibly, into the general cur- 
rent. I found that her faults and weaknesses were all superficial and obvious 
to the most casual, if undazzled, observer. They rather dwindled than ex- 
panded upon a fuller knowledge ; or rather, took on new and brighter aspects 
in the light of her radiant and lofty soul. I learned to know her as a most 
fearless and unselfish champion of Truth and Human Good at all hazards, 
ready to be their standard-bearer through danger and obloquy, and if need be, 
their martyr. I think few have more keenly appreciated the material goods 
of life, — Rank, Riches, Power, Luxury, Enjoyment ; but I know none who 
would have more cheerfully surrendered them all, if the well-being of our 
Race could thereby have been promoted. I have never met another in 
whom the inspiring hope of Immortality was so strengthened into profound- 
est conviction. She did not believe in our future and unending existence, — 
she knew it, and '.ived ever in the broad glare of its morning twilight. With 



HER WRITINGS. 259 

a limited income and liberal wants, she was yet generous beyond the bounds 
of reason. Had the gold of California been all her own, she would have dis- 
bursed nine-teuths of it in eager and well-directed efforts to stay, or at least 
diminish, the flood of human misery. And it is but fair to state, that the lib- 
erality she evinced was fully paralleled by the liberality she experienced at 
the hands of others. Had she needed thousands, and made her wants known, 
she had friends who would have cheerfully supplied her. I think few persons, 
in their pecuniary dealings, have experienced and evinced more of the better 
qualities of human nature than Margaret Fuller. She seemed to inspire 
those who approached her with that generosity which was a part of her 
nature. 

" Of her writings I do not propose to speak critically. I think most of her 
contributions to the Tribune, while she remained with us, were characterized by 
a directness, terseness, and practicality, which are wanting in some of her 
earlier productions. Good judges have confirmed my own opinion, that while 
her essays in the Dial are more elaborate and ambitious, her revicAvs in the 
Tribune are far better adapted to win the favor and sway the judgment of the 
great majority of readers. But, one characteristic of her writings I feel 
bound to commend, — their absolute truthfulness. She never asked how this 
would sound, nor whether that would do, nor what would be the effect of say- 
ing anything ; but simply, ' Is it the truth 7 Is it such as the public should 
know?' And if her judgment answered, 'Yes,' she uttered it; no matter 
what turmoil it might excite, nor what odium it might draw down on her own 
head. Perfect conscientiousness was an unfailing characteristic of her literary 
efforts. Even the severest of her critiques, — that on Longfellow's Poems, — 
for which an impulse in personal pique has been alleged, I happen with cer- 
tainty to know had no such origin. When I first handed her the book to re- 
view, she excused herself, assigning the wide divergence of her views of Po- 
etry from those of the author and his school, as her reason. She thus induced 
me to attempt the task of reviewing it myself. But day after day sped by, 
and I could" find no hour that was not absolutely required for the performance 
of some duty that would not be put off, nor turned over to another. At length 
I carried the book back to her in utter despair of ever finding an hour in 
which even to look through it ; and, at my renewed and earnest request, she 
reluctantly undertook its discussion. The statement of these facts is but an 
act of justice to her memory. 

" Profoundly religious, — though her creed was, at once, very broad and very 
short, with a genuine love for inferiors in social position, whom she was habit- 
ually studying, by her counsel and teachings, to elevate and improve, — she 
won the confidence and afi"ection of those who attracted her, by unbounded 
sympathy and trust. She probably knew the cherished secrets of more hearts 
than any one else, because she freely imparted her own. With a full share 
both of intellectual and of family pride, she pre-eminently recognized and re- 



260 MARGARET FULLER. 

sponded to the essential brotherhood of all human kind, and needed hx lO 
know that a fellow-being required her counsel or assistance, to render her, jot 
merely willing, but eager to impart it. Loving ease, luxury, and the world's 
good opinion, she stood ready to renounce them all, at the call of pity or of 
duty. I think no one, not radically averse to the whole system of domestic 
servitude, would have treated servants, of whatever class, with such uniform 
and thoughtful consideration, — a regard which wholly merged their factitious 
condition in their antecedent and permanent humanity. I think few servants 
ever lived weeks with her, who were not dignified and lastingly benefited by 
her influence and her counsels They might be at first repelled, by what 
seemed her too stately manner and exacting disposition, but they soon learned 
to esteem and love her. 

" I have known few women, and scarcely another maiden, who had the 
heart and the courage to speak with such frank compassion, in mixed circles, 
of the most degraded and outcast portion of the sex. The contemplation of 
their treatment, especially by the guilty authors of their ruin, moved her to a 
calm and mournful indignation, which she did not attempt to suppress nor 
control. Others were willing to pity and deplore ; Margaret was more inclined 
to vindicate and to redeem. She did not hesitate to avow that on meeting 
some of these abused, unhappy sisters, she had been surprised to find them 
scarcely fallen morally below the ordinary standard of Womanhood, — realiz- 
ing and loathing their debasement; anxious to escape it; and only repelled 
by the sad consciousness that for them sympathy and society remained only so 
long as they should persist in the ways of pollution. Those who have read 
her ' Woman,' may remember some daring comparisons therein suggested be- 
tween these Pariahs of society and large classes of their respectable sisters ; 
and that was no fitful expression, — no sudden outbreak, — but impelled by her 
most deliberate convictions, I think, if she had been born to large fortune, a 
house of refuge for all female outcasts desiring to return to the ways of 
Virtue, would have been one of her most cherished and first realized concep- 
tions. 

" Her love of children was one of her most prominent characteristics. The 
pleasure she enjoyed in their society was fully counterpoised by that she im- 
parted. To them she was never lofty, nor reserved, nor mystical ; for no one 
had ever a more perfect faculty for entering into their sports, their feelings, 
their enjoyments. She could narrate almost any story in language level to 
their capacities, and in a manner calculated to bring out their hearty and often 
boisterously-expressed delight. She possessed marvellous powers of observa- 
tion and imitation or mimicry ; and, had she been attracted to the stage, 
would have been the first actress America has produced, whether in tragedy or 
comedy, Her faculty of mimicking was not needed to commend her to the 
hearts of children, but it had its efi"ect in increasing the fascinations of her 
genial nature and heartfelt joy in their society. To amuse and instruct then' 



MARGARET AND PICKIE. 201 

tvas an achievement for which she would readily forego any personal object ; 
and her intuitive perception of the toys, games, stories, rhymes, &c., best 
adapted to arrest and enchain their attention, was unsurpassed. Between her 
and my only child, then living, who was eight months old when she came to 
us, and something over two years when she sailed for Europe, tendrils of af- 
fection gradually intertwined themselves, which I trust Death has not severed, 
but rather multiplied and strengthened. She became his teacher, playmate, 
and monitor ; and he requited her with a prodigality of loVe and admiration. 

" I shall not soon forget their meeting in my office, after some weeks' sepa- 
ration, just before she left us forever. His mother had brought him in from 
the country, and left him asleep on my sofa, while she was absent making 
purchases, and he had rolled off and hurt himself in the fall, waking with the 
shock in a frenzy of anger, just before Margaret, hearing of his arrival, rushed 
into the office to find him. I was vainly attempting to soothe him as she en- 
tered ; but he was running from one end to the other of the office, crying pas- 
sionately, and refusing to be pacified. She hastened to him, in perfect confi- 
dence that her endearments would calm the current of his feelings, — that the 
sound of her well-remembered voice would banish all thought of his pain, — 
and that another moment would see him restored to gentleness ; but, half- 
wakened, he did not heed her, and probably did not even realize who it was 
that caught him repeatedly in her arms and tenderly insisted that he should 
restrain himself. At last she desisted in despair ; and, with the bitter tears 
streaming down her face, observed : — ' Pickie, many friends have treated me 
unkindly, but no one had ever the power to cut me to the heart as you have !' 
Being thus let alone, he soon came to himself, and their mutual delight in the 
meeting was rather heightened by the momentary estrangement. 

" They had one more meeting ; the last on earth ! ' Aunty Margaret' was 
to embark for Europe on a certain day, and ' Pickie' was brought into the city 
to bid her farewell. They met this time also at my office, and together we 
thence repaired to the ferry-boat, on which she was returning to her residence 
in Brooklyn to complete her preparations for the voyage. There they took a 
tender and affecting leave of each other. But soon his mother called at the 
office, on her way to the departing ship, and we were easily persuaded to ac- 
company her thither, and say farewell once more, to the manifest satisfaction 
of both Margaret and the youngest of her devoted friends. Thus they parted, 
never to meet again in time. She sent him messages and presents repeatedly 
from Europe ; and he, when somewhat older, dictated a letter in return, which 
was joyfully received and acknowledged. When the mother of our great- 
souled friend spent some days with us nearly two years afterward, ' Pickie' 
talked to her often and lovingly of ' Aunty Margaret,' proposing that they two 
should ' take a boat and go over and see her,' — for, to his infantile conception, 
the low coast of Long Island, visible just across the East Kiver, was that Eu- 
rope to which she had sailed, and whefe she was unaccountably detained sc 



262 MARGARET FULLER. 

long. Alas ! a far longer and more adventurous journey was required to re- 
unite those loving souls! The 12th of July, 1849, saw him stricken down, 
from health to death, by the relentless cholera ; and my letter, announcing 
that calamity, drew from her a burst of passionate sorrow, such as hardly any 
bereavement but the loss of a very near relative could have impelled. An- 
other year had just ended, when a calamity, equally sudden, bereft a wide 
circle of her likewise, with her husband and infant son. Little did I fear, 
when I bade her a confident Good-bye, on the deck of her outward-bound ship, 
that the sea would close over her earthly remains ere we should meet again ; 
far less that the light of my eyes and the cynosure of my hopes, who then 
bade her a tenderer and sadder farewell, would precede her on the dim path- 
way to that ' Father's house' whence is no returning ! Ah, well ! God is above 
all, and gracious alike in what he conceals and what he discloses ; — benignant 
and bounteous, as well when he reclaims as when he bestows. In a few years, 
at farthest, our loved and lost ones will welcome us to their home." 

Margaret Fuller, on her part, was fully sensible of the merits of 
him who has so touchingly embalmed her memory. " Mr. Greeley," 
she wrote in a private letter, "is a man of genuine excellence, hon- 
orable, benevolent, and of an uncorrapted disposition. He is saga- 
cious, and, in his way, of even great abilities. In modes of life and 
manner he is a man of the people, and of the American people." 
And again : " Mr. Greeley is in many ways very interesting for me 
to know. He teaches me things, which my own influence on those 
who have hitherto approached me, has prevented me from learning. 
In our business and friendly relations, we are on terms of solid 
good-will and mutual respect. "With the exception of my own 
mother, I think him the most disinterestedly generous person I have 
ever known." And later she writes : "You have heard that the 
Tribune Office was burned to the ground. For a day I thouglit it 
must make a difference, but it has served only to increase my admi- 
ration for Mr. Greeley's smiling courage. He has really a strong 
character." 

In another letter, written at Rome in 1849, there is another allu- 
sion to Mr. Greeley and his darling boy. " Receiving," she said, " a 
few days since, a packet of letters from America, I opened them 
with more feeling of hope and good cheer, than for a long time 
past. The first words that met my eye were these, in the hand of 
Mr. Greeley: 'Ah, Margaret, the world grows dark with us! You 
grieve, for Rome is fallen ; I motft-n, for Pickie is dead.* 



EDITORIAL REPARTEES. 263 

" I have shed rivers of tears over the inexpressibly affecting letter 
thns begun. One would think I might have become familiar enough 
with images of death and destruction ; yet somehow the image of 
Pickie's little dancing figure, lying, stiff and stark, between his par- 
ents, has made me weep more than all else. There was little hope 
he could do justice to himself, or lead a happy life in so perplexed 
a world ; but never was a character of richer capacity, — never a 
more charming child. To me he was most dear, and would always 
have been so. Had he become stained with earthly faults, I could 
never have forgotten what he was when fresh from the soul's homo, 
and what he was to me when my soul pined for sympathy, pure 
and unalloyed." 

A few months -after these words were written, Margaret Fuller 
saw her native shores ; but she was destined never to tread thftn 
again. The vessel in which she was a passenger was wrecked on 
tlie coast of Long Island. The body of her infant son was washed 
on shore, but she and her husband found death, burial, requiem, all 
in the deep. 



CHAPTER XXI 



EDITORIAL REPARTEES. 

At war with all the world— The spirit of the Tribune— Retorts vituperative— The Tri- 
bune a;nd Dr. Potts— Some prize tracts suggested— An atheist's oath— A word for 
domestics — Irish Democracy — The modern drama — Hit at Dr. Hawks — Dissolution 
of the Union— Dr. Franklin's story — A Picture for Polk — Charles Dickens and 
Copyright— Charge of Malignant falsehood— Preaching and Practice— Col. Webb 
severely hit— Hostility to the Mexican war— Violence incited— A few sparks— The 
course of the Tribune— Wager with the Herald. 

The years 1845, 1846, and 1847, were emphatically the fighting 
years of the New York Tribune. If it was not at war with all 
the world, all the world seemed to be at war with it, and it was 
kept constantly on the defensive. "With the ' democratic ' press, of 
course, it could not be at peace. The whig press of the city de- 
nounced it, really because it was immovably prosperous, ostensibly 



264 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. 

on the ground of its Fourierite and progressive tendencies. Its oppo- 
sition to capital punishment, the freedom of its reviews, and the 
* hospitality it gave to every new thought,' gave offence to the relig- 
ious press. Its tremendous hostility to the Mexican war excited the 
animosity of all office-holders and other patriots, including the pres- 
ident, who made a palpable allusion to the course of the Tribune in 
one of his messages. There was talk even of mobbing the office, 
at one of the war meetings in the Park. Its zeal in behalf of Irish 
repeal alienated the English residents, who naturally liked the 
'pluck' and independence of the Tribune. Its hostility to the slave 
power provoked the south, and all but destroyed its southern cir- 
culation. It offended bigots by giving Thomas Paine his due ; it 
offended unbelievers by refusiug to give him more. Its opposition 
to the drama, as it is, called forth many a sneer from the papers 
who have the honor of the drama in their special keeping. Tlie 
extreme American party abhorred its enmity to Nativeism. The 
extreme Irish party distrusted it, because in sentiment and feeling 
it was thoroughly Protestant. The extreme liberal party disliked 
its opposition to their views of marriage and divorce. In a word, 
if the course of the Tribune had been suggested by a desire to give 
the greatest offense to the greatest number, it could hardly have 
made more enemies than it did. 

In the prospectus to the fifth volume, the editor seemed to antici- 
pate a period of inky war. 

" Our conservatism," he said, " is not of that Chinese tenacity which insists 
that the bad must be cherished simply because it is old. We insist only that 
the old must be proved bad and never condemned merely because it is old ; 
and that, even if defective, it should not be overthrown till something better 
has been provided to replace it. The extremes of blind, stubborn resistance 
to change, and rash, sweeping, convulsive innovation, are naturally allien, each 
paving the way for the other. The supple courtier, the wholesale flatterer of 
the Despot, and the humble servitor and bepraiser of the dear People, are not 
two distinct characters, but essentially the same. Thus believing, we, while 
we do not regard the judgment of sinj present majority as infallible, cannot 
attribute infallibility to any acts or institutes of a past generation, but look un- 
doubtingly for successive improvements as Knowledge Virtue, Philanthropy, 
shall be more and more diffused ainong men. 

** * * * ♦ * * * 

" Full of error and suffering as the world yet is, we cannot afford to reject 



THE SPIRIT OF THE TRIBUNE. 265 

tmexamined any idea which proposes to improve the Moral, Intellectual, or 
Social condition of mankind. Better incur the trouble of testing and explod- 
ing a thousand fallacies than by rejecting stifle a single beneficent truth. Es- 
pecially on the vast theme of an improved Organization of Industry, so as to 
secure constant opportunity and a just recompense to every human being able 
and willing to labor, we are not and cannot be indifferent. 

"No subject can be more important than this; no improvement mora cer- 
tain of attainment. The plans hitherto suggested may all prove abortive ; 
the experiments hitherto set on foot may all come to nought, (as many of 
them doubtless will ;) yet these mistakes shall serve to indicate the true means 
of improvement, and these experiments shall bring nearer and nearer the 
grand consummation which they contemplate. The securing of thorough Edu- 
cation, Opportunity and just Reward to all, cannot be beyond the reach of 
the nineteenth century. To accelerate it, the Tribune has labored and will 
labor resolutely and hopefully. Those whose dislike to or distrust of the in- 
vestigations in this field of human effort impel them to reject our paper, have 
ample range for a selection of journals more acceptable." 

In the spirit of these words the Tribune was conducted. And 
every man, in any age, who conducts his life, his newspaper, or his 
business in that spirit, will be misunderstood, distrusted and hated, 
in exact proportion to his fidelity to it. Perfect fidelity, the world 
will so entirely detest that it will destroy the man who attains to it. 
The world will not submit to be so completely put out of counte- 
nance. 

My task, in this chapter, is to show how the editor of the Tri- 
bune comported himself when he occupied the position of target- 
general to the Press, Pulpit, and Stump of the United States. He 
was not in the slightest degree distressed or alarmed. On the con- 
trary, I think he enjoyed the position ; and, though he handled his 
enemies without gloves, and called a spade a spade, and had to dis- 
patch a dozen foemen at once, and could not pause to select his 
weapons, yet I can find in those years of warfare no trace of bitter- 
ness on his part. There is no malice in his satire, no spite in his 
anger. He seems never so happy as when he is at bay, and is never 
so funny as when he is repelhng a personal assault. I have before 
me several hundreds of his editorial hits and repartees, some serious, 
more comic, some refuting argument, others exposing slander, some 
merely vituperative, others rery witty, all extremely readable, 

12 



266 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. 

though the occasions that called them forth have kjag passed by. 
My plan is to select and condense a few of each kind, presenting 
only ihQ point of each. 

Many of our editor's replies are remarkable chiefly for their ' free 
and easy' manner, their ignoring of ' editorial dignity.' A specimen 
or two : 

In reply to a personal attack by Major Koah, of the Union, he 
begins, " We ought not to notice this old villain again." On another 
occasion, "What a silly old joker this last hard bargain of Tylerism 
is!" On another, "Major Noah! vfhjwon'^t you tell the truth once 
in a century, for the variety of the thing." On another, " And it is 
by such poor drivel as this that the superannuated renegade from 
all parties and all principles attempts to earn his forced contribu- 
tions and ' Official' advertisements ! Surely his latest purchasers 
must despise their worn-out tool, and most heartily repent of their 
hard bargain." 

Such mild openings as the following are not uncommon : 

"The Journal of Commerce is the most self-complacent and dogmatic of 
all possible newspapers." 

" The villain who makes this charge against me well knows that it is the 
basest falsehood." 

" We defy the Father of lies himself to crowd more stupendous falsehoods 
into a paragraph than this contains." 

" Mr. Benton ! each of the above observations is a deliberate falsehood, and 
you are an unqualified villain !" 

" The Express is surely the basest and paltriest of all possible journals." 
" Having been absent from the city for a few days, I perceive with a pleas- 
urable surprise on my return that the Express has only perpetrated two aew 
calumnies upon me of any consequence since Friday evening." 

" 'Ephraim,' said a grave divine, taking his text from one of the prophets, 
* is a cake not turned. (Hosea, vii. 8.) Let us proceed, therefore, brethren, 
to turn Ephraim — first, inside out ; next, back-side before ; and, thirdly, 
'tother end up.' 

•'We are under the imperative necessity of performing on Samuel of this 
day a searching operation like unto that of the parson on Ephraim of old." 

That will suffice for the vituperative. We proceed to those of 
another description : 



THE TRIBUl^E AND DR. POTTS. 



267 



PEO YOOATION. 

A Sermon by Dr. Potts, denouncing the Tribune as agrarian, &c., 
reported in the Courier and Enquirer. 



" It is quite probable that we have some readers among the pew-holders 
of a church so wealthy and fashionable as the Dr.'s, though few, we presume, 
among divines as well salaried as he is. We will only ask those of our patrons 
who may obey his command to read for their next Scripture lesson the xxvth 
Chapter of Leviticus, and reflect upon it for an hour or so. We are very sure 
they will find the exercise a profitable one, in a sense higher than they will 
have anticipated. Having then stopped the Tribune, they will meditate at 
leisure on the abhorrence and execration with which one of the Hebrew Proph- 
ets must have regarded any kind of an Agrarian or Anti-Renter ; that is, 
one opposed to perpetuating and extending the relation of Landlord and 
Tenant over the whole arable surface of the earth. Perhaps the contempla- 
tion of a few more passages of Sacred Writ may not be unprofitable in a moral 
. sense — for example : 

" ' Woe unto them that join [add] house to house, that lay field to field 
that there be no place, that they be placed alone in the midst of the earth.' 
— Isaiah, v. 8. 

" * One thing thou lackest : go thy way, sell whatever thou hast, and give 
to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and come, take up the 
the cross, and follow me : 

*' ' And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly 
shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God !' — Mark, x. 21-23. 

" ' And all that believed were together, and had all things common ; and 
Bold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, as every man had 
need.' — Acts, ii. 44, 45. 

"We might cite columns of this sort from the Sacred Volume, showing a 
deplorable lack of Doctors of Divinity in ancient times, to be employed at 
$3,500 a year in denouncing, in sumptuous, pew-guardcd edifices costing 
$75,000 each, all who should be guilty of ' loosening the faith of many in the 
established order of things.'' Alas for their spiritual blindness ! the ancient 
Prophets — God's Prophets — appear to have slight faith in or reverence for 
that 'established order' themselves ! Their 'schemes' appear to have been 
regarded as exceedingly 'disorganizing' and hostile to 'good order' by the 
spiritual rulers of the people in those days. 

" That Dr. Potts, pursuing (we trust) the career most congenial to his feel- 
ings, surrounded by every comfort and luxury, enjoying the best society, and 
3nabled to support and educate his children to the hight of his desires, should 
be inclined to reprobate all ' nostrums ' for the cure of Social evils, and sneer 



268 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. 

at ' labor-saving plans ' of cooking, washing, schooling, &c., is rather deplora- 
ble than surprising. Were he some poor day-laborer, subsisting his family 
and paying rent on the dollar a day he could get when the weather permitted 
and some employer's necessity or caprice gave him a chance to earn it, we be- 
lieve he would view the subject differently. As to the spirit which can de- 
nounce by wholesale all who labor, in behalf of a Social Reform, in defiance 
of general obloquy, rooted prejudice, and necessarily serious personal sacri- 
fices, as enemies of Christianity and Good Morals, and call upon the public to 
starve them into silence, does it not merit the rebuke and loathing of every 
generous mind? Heaven aid us to imitate, though afar off, that Divinest 
charity which could say for its persecutors and murderers, ' Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do !' 

" We are profoundly conscious that the moral tone and bearing of the Press 
fall very far beneath their true standard, and that it too often panders to pop- 
ular appetites and prejudices when it should rather withstand and labor to cor- 
rect them. We, for example, remember having wasted many precious col- 
umns of this paper, whereby great good might have been done, in the publi- 
cation of a controversy on the question, ' Can there be a Church without a 
Bishop V — a controversy unprofitable in its subject, verbose and pointless in its 
logic, and disgraceful to our common Christianity in its exhibitions of unchar- 
itable temper and gladiatorial tactics. The Rev. Dr. Potts may also remem- 
ber that controversy. We ask the Pulpit to strengthen our pwn fallible reso- 
lution never to be tempted by any hope of pecuniary profit, (pretty sure to be 
delusive, as it ought,) into meddling with such another discreditable per- 
formance. 

"We do not find, in the Courier's report of this sermon, any censures upon 
that very large and popularly respectable class of journals which regularly 
hire out their columns. Editorial and Advertising, for the enticement of their 
readers to visit grogeries, theatres, horse-races, as we sometimes have thought- 
lessly done, but hope never, unless through deplored inadvertence, to do again. 
The difliculty of entirely resisting all temptations to these lucrative vices is so 
great, and the temptations themselves so incessant, while the moral mischief 
thence accruing is so vast and palpable, that we can hardly think the Rev. Dr. 
slurred over the point, while we can very well imagine that his respected dis- 
ciple and reporter did so. At this moment, when the great battle of Temper- 
ance against Liquid Poison and its horrible sorceries is convulsing our State, 
and its issue trembles in the balance, it seems truly incredible that a Doctor 
of Divinity, lecturing on the iniquities of the Press, can have altogether over- 
looked this topic. Cannot the Courier from its reporter's notes supply the 
omission ?" 

PEOVOOATION. 

An advertisement offering a prize of fifty dollars for the best 



SOME PRIZE TRACTS SUGGESTED. 269 

tract dn the Impropriety of Dancing by members of chnrclies, the 
tract to be published by the American Tract Society. 



" The notice copied above suggests to us some other subjects on which we 
think Tracts are needed — subjects which are beginning to attract the thoughts 
of not a few, and which are, like dancing, of practical moment. We would 
suggest premiums to be offered, as follows : 

"$20 for the best Tract on 'The rightfulness and consistency of a Chris- 
tian's spending $5,000 to $10,000 a year on the appetites and enjoyments of 
himself and family, when there are a thousand families within a mile of him 
who are compelled to live on less than $200 a year. 

" $10 for the best Tract on the rightfulness and Christianity of a Christian's 
building a house for the exclusive residence of himself and family, at a cost 
of $50,000 to $100,000, within sight of a hundred families living in hovels 
worth less than $100. 

" $5 for the best Tract on the Christianity of building Churches which cost 
$100,000 each, in which poor sinners can only worship on sufferance, and in 
the most out-of-the-way corners. 

"We would not intimate that these topics are by any means so important as 
that of Dancing — far from it. The sums we suggest will shield us from that 
imputation. Yet we think these subjects may also be discussed with profit, 
and, that there may be no pecuniary hinderance, we will pay the premiums 
if the American Tract Society will publish the Tracts." 

PEOYO CATION. 

An assertion in the Express, that the Tribune bestows " peculiar 
commendation upon that part of the new Constitution which takes 
away the necessity of believing in a Supreme Being, on the part of 
him who may be called to swear our lives or property away." 

REPLY. 

="The necessity of believing in a Supreme Being,' in order to be a legal 
witness, never existed ; but only the necessity of professing to believe it. Now, 
a thorough villain who was at the same time an Atheist would be pretty apt 
to keep to himself a belief, the avowal of which would subject him to legal 
penalties and popular obloquy, but a sincere, honest man, whose mind had be- 
come confused or clouded with regard to the evidence of a Universal Father, 
would be very likely to confess his lack of faith, and thereby be disabled from 
testifying. Such disability deranges the administration of justice and facil- 
itates the escape of the guilty." 



370 EDITORIAL RrfbARTEES. 

PEOYOOATIOX. 

An assertion that it ia false pride^ that makes domestic service so 
abhorrent to American girls. 



" You, Madam, who talk so flippantly of the folly or false pride of our girls 
have you ever attempted to put yourself in their place and consider the mat 
ter 1 Have you ever -weighed in the balance a crust and a garret at home, 
with better food and lodging in the house of a stranger 7 Have you ever 
thought of the difference between doing the most arduous and repulsive work 
for those you love, and who love you, and doing the same in a strange place 
for those to whom your only bond of attachment is six dollars a month? 
Have you ever considered that the words of reproof and reproach, so easy to 
utter, are very hard to bear, especially from one whose right so to treat you 
is a thing of cash and of yesterday 1 Is the difference between freedom and 
service nothing to you 1 How many would you like to have ordering you V 

PROVOCATION. 

A vain-glorious claim to pure democracy on the part of a pro- 
slavery Irish paper. • 

REPLY. 

" "We like Irish modesty — it is our own sort — but Irish ideas of Liberty are 
not always so thorough and consistent as we could wish them. To hate and 
resist the particular form of Oppression to which we have been exposed, by 
which we have suffered, is so natural and easy that we see little merit in it ; 
to loathe and defy all Tyranny evermore, is what few severe sufferers by Op- 
pression ever attain to. Ages of Slavery write their impress on the souls of 
the victims — wo must not blame them, therefore, but cannot stifle our con- 
sciousness nor suppress our sorrow. It is sad to see how readily the great 
mass of our Irish-born citizens, themselves just escaped from a galling, de- 
grading bondage, lend themselves to the iniquity of depressing and flouting 
the down-trodden African Race among us — it was specially sad to see them 
come up to the polls in squads, when our present State Constitution was adopt- 
ed, and vote in solid mass against Equal Suffrage to all Citizens, shouting, 
' Down with the Nagurs ! Let them go back to Africa, where they belong /' 
— for such was the language of Adopted Citizens of one or two years' stand 
ing with regard to men born here, with their ancestors before them for several 
generations. "We learn to hate Despotism and Enslavement more intensely 
when we are thus confronted by their ineffaceable impress on the souls of 
too many of their victims." 



THE MODERN DRAMA. 271 

PEOVOOATION. 

An article in the Sunday Mercury condemning tlie Tribune for 
excluding theatrical criticism. 

REPLY. 
" The last time but one that we visited a theater — it was from seven to ten 
years ago — we were insulted by a ribald, buffoon song, in derision of total ab- 
stinence from intoxicating liquors. During the last season we understand that 
Mr. Brougham — whom we are specially blamed by the Mercury for not help- 
ing to a crowded benefit — has made a very nice thing of ridiculing Socialism. 
"We doubt whether any great, pervading reform has been effected since there 
was a stage, which that stage has not ridiculed, misrepresented, and held up 
to popular odium. It is in its nature the creature of the mob — that is, of the 
least enlightened and least earnest portion of the community — and flatters the 
prejudices, courts the favor, and varnishes the vices of that portion. It bel- 
lows lustily for Liberty — meaning license to do as you please — but has small 
appetite for self-sacrifice, patient industry, and an unselfish devotion to duty. 
We fear that we shall not be able to like it, even with its groggeries and assig- 
nation-rooms shut up — but without this we cannot even begin." 

PEOVOOATION. 

A sermon by Dr. Hawks denouncing Socialism in the usual style 
of well-fed thoughtlessness. 

REPLY. 

" If ' the Socialists,' as a body, were called upon to pronounce upon the pro- 
priety of taking the property of certain doctors of divinity and dividing it 
among the mechanics and laborers, to whom they have run recklessly and 
heavily in debt, we have no doubt they would vote very generally and heartily 
in the affirmative.' 

PROVOCATION. 

A letter bewailing the threatened dissolution of the Union. 

REPLY. 

" The dissolution of the Union would not he the dreadful affair he repre- 
sents it. It would be a very absurd act on the part of the seceding party, and 
would work great inconvenience and embarrassment, especially to the people 
of the great Mississippi Valley. In time, however, matters would accommo- 
date themselves to the new political arrangements, and we should grow as 
aiany bushels of corn to the acre, and get as many yards of cloth from a hun 



272 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. 

dred pounds of wool, as we now do. The Union is an excellent thing — quite 
too advantageous to be broken up in an age so utilitarian aa this ; but it ia 
possible to exaggerate even its blessings." 



PEOTOOATION. 

An article in a Southern paper recommending the secession of 
the Slave States from the Union. 

REPLY. 

" Dr. Franklin used to tell an anecdote illustrative of his idea of the folly 
of duelling, substantially thus : A man said to another in some public place, 
• Sir, I wish you would move a little away from me, for a disagreeable odor pro- 
ceeds from you.' ' Sir,' was the stern response, ' that is an insult, and you must 
fight me !' ' Certainly,' was the quiet reply, * I will fight you if you wish 
it ; but I don't see how that can mend the matter. If you kill me, I also shall 
smell badly ; and if I kill you, you will smell worse than you do now.' 

" We have not yet been able to understand what our Disunionists, North or 
South, really expect to gain by dissolving the Union. * * * ' Three valu- 
able slaves escaped,' do you say 1 Will slaves be any less likely to run away 
when they know that, once across Mason and Dixon's line, they are safe from 
pursuit, and can never be reclaimed ? ' Every slaveholder is in continual ap- 
apprehension,' say you ? In the name of wonder, how is Disunion to soothe 
their nervous excitement? They 'won't stand it,' eh? Have they never 
heard of getting ' out of the frying-pan into the fire' 7 Do let us hear how 
Slavery is to be fortified and perpetuated by Disunion !" 



PROVOCATION". 

The excessive confidence of "Whigs in the election of Henry Clay. 



" There is an old legend that once on a time all the fo.ks in the world 
entered into an agreement that at a specified moment they would give one 
unanimous shout, just to see what a noise they could make, and what tre 
mendous effects it would produce. The moment came — everybody was ex 
pecting to see trees, if not houses, thrown down by the mighty concussion ; 
when lo ! the only sound was made by a dumb old woman, whose tongue waa 
loosed by the excitement of the occasion. The rest had all stood with moutha 
and ears wide open to hear the great noise, and so forgot to make any ! 

" The moral we tru»t our Whig friends everywhere will take to heart." 



A PICTURE FOR POLK. 



273 



PEOYOCATION. 



The passage in tlie President's Message which condemned those 
who opposed the Mexican war as unpatriotic. 



^idii^e foi" it)e ^i^e^iSeiif^ SeS-^ooin, 



"IS THIS WAR?" 

" Monterey, Oct. 7, 1846. 
" While I was stationed with our left wing in one of the forts, 
on the evening of the 21st, I saw a Mexican woman busily en- 
gaged in carrying bread and water to the wounded men of both 
armies. I saw this ministering angel raise the head of a 
wounded man, give him water and food, and then carefully 
bind up his wound with a handkerchief she took from her own 
head. After having exhausted her supplies, she went back to 
her own house to get more bread and water for others. As she 
was returning on her mission of mercy, to comfort other wound- 
ed persons, I heard the report of a gun, and saw the poor in- 
nocent creature fall dead ! I think it was an accidental shot 
that struck her. I would not be willing to believe otherwise. 
It made me sick at heart, and, turning from the scene, I in- 
voluntarily raised my eyes towards heaven, and thought, great 
God ! and is this War ? Passing the spot next day, I saw her 
body still lying there with the bread by her side, and the broken 
gourd, with a few drops of water still in it — emblems of her 
errand. We buried her, and while we were digging her grave, 
cannon balls flew around us like hail." — Cor. Louisville Cour. 



^l^v'®SN^>\^^^^.WaxSNe}Jls^Q<SN£}^'^^^^^ii^^^^/^ 



PEOYOCATION. 



Complaints of Charles Dickens' Advocacy of International Copy- 
right at public dinners. 



" We trust he will not be deterred from speaking the frank, round truth by 
any mistaken courtesy, diffidence, or misapprehension of public sentiment. 
He 'ught to speak out on this matter, for whr shall protest against robbery 

12* 



274 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. 

if those who are robbed may noti Here is a man who writes for a living, 
and writes nobly ; and we of this country greedily devour his writings, are 
entertained and instructed by them, yet refuse so to protect his rights as an 
author that he can realize a single dollar from all their vast American sale 
and popularity. Is this right 1 Do we look well offering him toasts, compli- 
ments, and other syllabub, while we refuse him naked justice 1 while we 
say that every man may take from him the fruits of his labors without recom- 
pense or redress ? It does very well in a dinner speech to say that fame and 
popularity, and all that, are more than sordid gold ; but he has a wife and 
four children, whom his death may very possibly leave destitute, -perhaps 
dependent for their bread, while publishers, who have grown rich on his 
writings, roll by in their carriages, and millions who have been instructed 
by them contribute not one farthing to their comfort. But suppose him rich, 
if you please, the justice of the case is unaltered. He is the just owner of 
his own productions as much as though he had made axes or horse-shoes ; and 
the people who refuse to protect his right, ought not to insult him with the 
mockery of thriftless praise. Let us be just, and then generous. Good 
reader ! if you think our guest ought to be enabled to live by and enjoy the 
fruits of his talents and toil, just put your names to a petition for an Inter- 
national Copyright Law, and then you can take his hand heartily if it comes 
in your way, and say, if need be, ' I have done what is in my power to pro- 
tect you from robbery !' The passage of this act of long-deferred justice will 
be a greater tribute to his worth and achievements than acres of inflated 
compliments soaked in hogsheads of champagne." 

rEOYOOATIOX. 

A paragraph recommending a provision /<??' life for tlie soldiers 
disabled in the Mexican war. 

EEPLY. 
"Uncle Sam ! you bedazzled old hedge-hog ! don't you see 'glory' is cheap 
as dirt, only you never get done paying for it ! Forty years hence, your boys 
will be still paying taxes to support the debt you are now piling up, and the 
cripples and other pensioners you are now manufacturing. How much more 
of this will satisfy you V 

PEOVOCATION. 

An accusation of ' malignant falsehood.' 



" There lives not a man who knows the editor of this paper who can 
made to believe that we have been guilty of ' malignant falsehood.' 



rRy;ACiriNG axd practice. 275 

" We seek no controversy with the Sun ; but, since it chooses to be personal, 
we defy its utmost industry and malice to point out a single act of our life in- 
consistent with integrity and honor. We dare it, in this respect, to do its 
worst !" 

PEOVOOATION. 

This sentence in the Express : " If the editor of the Tribune be- 
lieved a word of what he says, he would convert his profitable 
printing establishment into a Fourier common-stock concern." 

EEPLT. 

" If our adviser will just point us to any passage, rule, maxim or precept of 
Fourier (of whom he appears to know so much) which prescribes a pro rata 
division of proceeds among all engaged in producing them, regardless of abil- 
ity, efficiency, skill, experience, etc., we will assent to almost any absurdity 
he shall dictate. 

" As to * carrying out his theories of Fourierism,' etc., he (the editor of the 
Tribune) has expended for this specific purpose some thousands of dollars, and 
intends to make the same disposition of more as soon as he has it to expend. 
Whether he ought to be guided by his own judgment or that of the Express 
man respecting the time and manner of thus testifying his faith, he will con- 
sider in duo season. He has never had a dollar which was not the fair product 
of his own downright labor, and for whatever of worldly wealth may accrue 
to him beyond the needs of those dependent on his efforts he holds himself 
but the steward of a kind Providence, and bound to use it all as shall seem 
most conducive to the good of the Human Kace. It is quite probable, how- 
ever, that he will never satisfy the Express that he is either honest, sincere, 
or well-meaning, but that is not material. He has chosen, once for all, to an- 
swer a sort of attack which has become fashionable with a certain class of his 
enemies, and can hardly be driven to notice the like again." 

PEOVOOATION. 

An allusion in the Courier and Enquirer to Mr. Greeley's diet, 
attire, socialism, philosophy, etc. 



"It is true that the editor of the Tribune chooses mainly (not entirely) 
vegetable food ; but he never troubles his readers on the subject ; it does not 
worry them ; why should it conoem the Colonel 7 ^ * * It is hard 
for Philosophy that so humble a man shall be made to stand as its exem- 



270 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. 

plar ; while Christianity is personified by the here of the Sunday duel with 
Hon. Tom. Marshall ; but such luck will happen. 

" As to our personal appearance, it does seem time that we should say some- 
thing, to stay the flood of nonsense with which the town must by this time be 
nauseated. Some donkey a while ago, apparently anxious to assail or annoy 
the editor of this paper, and not well knowing with what, originated the story 
of his carelessness of personal appearances ; and since then every blockhead 
of the same disposition and distressed by a similar lack of ideas, has repeated 
and exaggerated the foolery ; until from its origin in the Albany Microscope 
it has sunk down at last to the columns of the Courier and Enquirer, growing 
more absurd at every landing. Yet all this time the object of this silly rail- 
lery has doubtless worn better clothes than two-thirds of those who thus as- 
sailed him — better than any of them could honestly wear, if they paid their 
debts otherwise than by bankruptcy ; while, if they are indeed more cleanly 
than he, they must bathe very thoroughly not less than twice a day. The 
editor of the Tribune is the son of a poor and humble farmer ; came to New 
York a minor, without a friend within 200 miles, less than ten dollars in his 
pocket, and precious little besides ; he has never had a dollar from a relative, 
and has for years labored under a load of debt, (thrown on him by others' 
misconduct and the revulsion of 1837,) which he can now just see to the end 
of. Thenceforth he may be able to make a better show, if deemed essential 
by his friends ; for himself, he has not much time or thought to bestow on the 
matter. That he ever affected eccentricity is most untrue ; and certainly no 
costume he ever appeared in would create such a sensation in Broadway as 
that James Watson Webb would have worn but for the clemency of Governor 
Seward, Heaven grant our assailant may never hang with such weight on 
another Whig Executive ! We drop him." 

(Colonel Webb had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment 
for fighting a duel. Governor Seward pardoned him before he had 
served one day of his term.) 

PROVOCATIOlSr. 

A charge of 'infidelity,' in the Express. 

REPLY. 

" The editor of the Tribune has never been anything else than a believer 
in the Christian Religion, and has for many years been a member of a Chris- 
tian Church. He never wrote or uttered a syllable in favor of Infidelity 
But truth is lost on the Express, which can never forgive us the ' Infidel- 
ity' of circulating a good mrny more copies, Daily and Weekly, than are 
taken of th.it paper." 



COL. WEBB SEVERELr HIT. 277 

PEOVOOATION. 

Letters complaining of the Tribune's hostility to the Mexican war. 

EEPLY. 

" Our faith is strong and clear that we serve our country best by obeying 
" our Maker in all things, and that He requires us to bear open, unequivocal 
testimony against every iniquity, however specious, and to expose every lying 
pretense whereby men are instigated to imbrue their hands in each other' s 
blood. We do not believe it possible that our country can be prospered in such 
a war as this. It may be victorious ; it may acquire immense accessions of 
territory ; but these victories, these acquisitions, will prove fearful calamities, 
by sapping the morals of our people, inflating them with pride and corrupting 
them with the lust of conquest and of gold, and leading them to look to the 
Commerce of the Indies and the Dominion of the Seas for those substantial 
blessings which follow only in the wake of peaceful, contented Labor. So suf e 
as the Universe has a Ruler will every acre of territory we acquire by this 
war prove to our Nation a curse and the source of infinite calamities." 

PPwOVOOATION. 

An attempt on the part of Ool. Webb to excite violence against 
the Tribune and its editor. 

KEPLY. 

" This is no new trick on the part of the Courier. It is not the first nor the 
second time that it has attempted to excite a mob to violence and outrage 
against those whom it hates. In July, 1834, when, owing to its ferocious de- 
nunciations of the Abolitionists, a furious and law-defying mob held virtual 
possession of our city, assaulting dwellings, churches and persons obnoxious to 
its hate, and when the Mayor called out the citizens by Proclamation to assist 
in restoring tranquillity, the Courier (11th July) proclaimed: 

" * It is time, for the reputation of the city, and perhaps for tho welfare of 
themselves, that these Abolitionists and Amalgamationists should know the 
ground on which they stand. They are, we learn, always clamorous with the 
Police for protection, and demand it as a right inherent to their characters as 
American citizens. Now we tell theTtt that, when they openly and publicly 
outrage public feeling, they have no right to demand protection from the Peo- 
ple they thus insult. When they endeavor to disseminate opinions which, if 
generally imbibed, must infallibly destroy our National Union, and produce 
scenes of blood and carnage horrid to think of; when they thus preach up 
treason and murder, the cegis of the Law indignantly withdraws its shelter 
from th^^m. 



278 EDITORIAL REPARTEES. 

" * When they vilify our religion by classing the Redeemer of the world in 
the lowest grade of the human species ; when they debase the noble race from 
which we spring — that race which called civilization into existence, and from 
which have proceeded all the great, the brave, and the good that have ever 
lived — and place it in the same scale as the most stupid, ferocious and cow- 
ardly of the divisions into which the Creator has divided mankind, then they 
place themselves beyond the pale of all law, for they violate every law, divine 
and human. Ought not, we ask, our City authorities to make them understand 
this ; to tell them that they prosecute their treasonable and beastly plans at 
their own peril V 

" Such is the man, such the means, by which he seeks to bully Freemen out 
of the rights of Free Speech and Free Thought. There are those who cower 
before his threats and his ruflSan appeals to mob violence — here is one who 
never will ! All the powers of Land-jobbing and Slave-jobbing cannot drive 
us one inch from the ground we have assumed of determined and open hostil- 
ity to this atrocious war, its contrivers and abettors. Let those who threaten 
us with assassination understand, once for all, that we pity while we despise 
their baseness." 

PEOVOOATIOX. 

The following, from the Express : " For woman we think the 
fittest place is home, ' sweet home ' — by her own fireside and among 
her own children ; but the Tribune would put her in trowsers, or 
on stilts as a puUic woman, or tumble her pell-mell into some Fou- 
rier establishment." 

EEPLT. 

The following, from the Express of the same date: "At the Park this even 
ing the graceful Augusta, (whose benefit, last night, notwithstanding the 
weather, was fashionably and numerously attended,) takes her le^ve of us for 
the present. We can add nothing to what we have already said in praise of 
this charming artist's performances, farther than to express the hope that it 
may not be long ere we are again permitted to see her upon our boards. As 
in beauty, grace, delicacy, and refinement, she stands alone in her profession, 
so in private life she enjoys, and most justly, too, the highest reputation in all 
her relations." 

PEOYOOATIOX. 

To what a low degree of debasement must the Coons have indeed 
fallen, when even so notorious a reprobate as Nick Biddle is disgust- 
ed with them. — Plebeian. 

REPLY. 
" All the * notorious reprobates ' in the country were 'disgusted' with the 
Whigs long ago. They have found their proper resting-place in the embraces 
of Loco-Focoism." 



EXPEDIENCY. 279 

PEOYOCATION'. 

Our "wliole national debt is less than sixty clays' interest on that 
of Great Britain, yet, with all our resources the English call us 
bankrupt \— Boston Post. 

EEPLY. 
" But England pays her interest — large as it is ; and if our States will not 
pay even their debts, small as they are, why should they not be called 
bankrupt 7" 

PEOYOOATION. 

A charge that the Tribune sacrified the Right to the Expedient. 

REPLY. 

" Old stories very often have a forcible application to present times. The 
following anecdote we met with lately in an exchange paper : 

" ' How is it, John, that you bring the wagon home in such a condition 1" 

" * I broke it driving over a stump." 

"' Where r' 

" ' Back in the woods, half a mile or so." 

" ' But why did you run against the stump 1 Could n't you see how to drive 
straight 7" 

" ' I did drive straight, sir, and that is the very reason that I drove over it 
The stump was directly in the middle of the road." 

<« « Why, then, did you not go round it 7" 

" ' Because, sir, the stump had no right in the middle of the road, and I liad 
a right in it." 

" ' True, John, the stump ought not to have been in the road, but I wonder 
that you were so foolish as not to consider that it was there, and that it 
was stronger than your wagon." 

" ' Why, father, do you think that I am always going to yield up my 
rights 1 Not I. I am determined to stick up to them, come what will." 

" ' But what is the use, John, of standing up to rights, when you only get a 
greater wrong by so doing 7" 

" ' I shall stand up for them at all hazards." 

" ' Well, John, all I have to say is this— hereafter you must furnish your 
own wagon." 

PEOVOCATIOIf. 

The applicatior. of the word ' Bah ' to one of the Tribune's ar- 
guments. 

EEPLY. 

*' We are quite willing that every animal should express its emotions in the 
language natural to it." 



280 EDITORIAL RiflPARTEES. 

PROVOCATION. 

Conservatism in general. 

REBUKE. 

" The stubborn conservative is like a horse on board a ferry-boat. The horse 
may back, but the boat moves on, and the animal with it." 

PROVOCATION. 

A correspondent, to illustrate his position, that slave-owners have 
a right to move with their slaves into new territories, compared 
those territories, to a village common, upon which every villager 
has an equal right to let his animals graze. 

REPLY. 

" No, sir. A man may choose to pasture his geese upon the common, ■which 
would spoil the pasture for cows and horses. The other villagers would be 
right in keeping out the geese, even by violence." 

And thus the Tribune warred, and warring, prospered. Eepeat- 
ed supplements, ever-increasing circulation, the frequent omission 
of advertisements, all testified that a man may be independent in 
the expression of the most unpopular opinions, and yet not be 
'starved into silence.' 

One more glance at the three volumes from which most of the 
above passages are taken, and we accompany our hero to new 
scenes. In the Fifty-four-forty-or-Fight controversy, the Tribune 
of course took the side of peace and moderation. Its obituary of 
General Jackson in 1845, being not wliolly eulogistic, called forth 
angry comment from the democratic press. In the same year, it 
gave to the advocates respectively of phonography, the phonetic 
system, and the magnetic telegraph, an ample hearing, and occa- 
sional encouragement. In 1846, its Eeporters were excluded from 
the gallery of the House of Eepresentatives, because a correspond- 
ent stated, jocularly, that Mr. Sawyer, of Ohio, lunched in the 
House on sausages. The weak member has since been styled Sau- 
sage Sawyer — a name which he will put off only with his mortal 
coil. Throughout the Mexican war, the Tribune gave all due honor 
to the gallantry of the soldiers who fought its battles, on one occa- 
Bion defending Gen. Pierce from the charge of cowardice and boast- 
ing. In 1847, the editor made the tour of the great lake country, 



WAOER WITH THE HERALD. ' 281 

going to the uttermost parts of Lake Superior, and writing a series 
of letters which revealed the charms and the capabiUties of that 
region. In the same year it gave a complete exposition of the so- 
called ' Revelations' of Mr. Andrew Jackson Davis, but without ex- 
pressing any opinion as to their supernatural origin. War followed, 
of course. To Mr. Whitney's Pacific Railroad scheme it assigned 
sufficient space. Agassiz' lectures were admirably reported, with 
from ten to twenty woodcuts in the report of each lecture. Gen. 
Taylor's nomination to the presidency it descried in the distance, 
and opposed vehemently. 

The last event of the seventh volume was the dispute with the 
Herald on the subject of the comparative circulation of the two 
papers. The Tribune challenged the Herald to an investigation by 
an impartial committee, whose report each paper should publish, 
and the losing party to give a hundred dollars to each of the two 
orphan asylums of the city. The Herald accepted. The report of 
the committee was as follows ; 

"The undersigned having been designated by the publishers of the New 
York Herald and New York Tribune, respectively, to examine jointly and re- 
port for publication the actual circulation of these two journals, have made 
the scrutiny required, and now report, that the average circulation of the two 
papers during the four weeks preceding the agreement which originated this 
investigation, was as follows : 

JVeto York Tribune, 

Average Daily circulation 11,455 

" Weekly " 15,780 

" Semi- Weekly 960 

Total 28,195 



J^ew York Herald. 

Average Daily circulation 16,711 

" Weekly " 11,455 

" Presidential " 780 



Total 28,946 

" The quantity of paper used by each establishment, during the four weeks 
above specified, was as follows : By the New York Herald, 975 reams for the 
Daily ; 95i reams for the Weekly, and 5 reams for the Presidential, By tho 
New York Tribune, 573 reams for the Daily ; 13U reams for the Weekly, and 
16 reams for the Semi- Weekly. 
" We therefore decide that the Herald has the larger average circulation. 

" James G. Wilson. 
" Daniel H. Megie." 

The Tribune paid the money, but protested that the ' Presidential 
Herald,' and, above all, the Sunday Herald, ought to have ben ex- 
cluded from the comparison. * 



CHAPTER XXII. 

1848! 

RevolttUons in Em-ope— The Tribune exults— Tlie Slievegammon letters— Taylor and 
Fillmore— Course of the Tribune— Horace Greeley at Vauxhall Garden— His 
election to Congress. 

The Year of Hope ! Tou have not forgotten, O reader, the 
thrill, the tumult, the ecstasy of joy with which, on the morning 
of March 28th, 1848, you read in the morning papers these electric 
and transporting capitals. Eegale your eyes with them once 
more: 

FIFTEEI^ DAYS LATER FROM EUROPE. 



ARRIVAL OF THE CAMBRIA. 



HIGHLY IMPORTANT NEWS ! 



ABDICATIOK OF LOUIS PHILLIPPEI 



A REPUBLIC PROCLAIMED. 



THE ROYAL FAMILY HAVE LEFT PARIS. 



ASSAULT OJV THE P A L A I'S ROYAL. 



GREAT LOSS OF LIFE. 



COMMUNICATION "WITH THE INTERIOR CUT OFF. 



KESIGNATION OF MINISTEES 



REVOLT IN AMIENS-PARIS IN ALARM. 



What history is condensed in these few words ? "Why has not 
that history been faithfully and minutely recorded, as a warning 
and a guide to the men of future revolutions ? Why has no one 
deduced from the events of the last eighty years a science of Rev- 
olution, laid down the principles upon which success is possible, 
probable, certain? The attempt, and not the deed confounded Eu- 



THE SLIEVEGAMMON LETTERS. 283 

rope, and condemned her to more years of festering stagnation. 
" As I looked out of the window of my hotel, iu Boulogne," says 
a recent traveler, " it seemed to me that all the men were soldiers, 
and that women did all the work." How pitiful ! How shameful I 
A million of men under arms ! The army, the elite of the nation.l 
One man of every ten to keep the- other nine in order / ! in- 
finite and dastardly imbecility ! 

I need not say that the Tribune plunged into the European con- 
tests headlong. It chronicled every popular triumph with exulta- 
tion unbounded. One of the editors of the paper, Mr. Charles A. 
Dana, went to Europe to procure the most authentic and direct in- 
formation of events as they transpired, and his letters over the 
well-known initials, ' 0. A. D.,' were a conspicuous and valuable 
feature of the year. Mr. Greeley wrote incessantly on the subject, 
blending advice with exhortation, jubilation with warning. In be- 
half of Ireland, his sympathies were most strongly aroused, and he 
accepted a place in the " Directory of the Friends of Ireland," to the 
funds of which he contributed liberally. 

It was in August of this year, that the famous " Slievegammon " 
letters were published. As frequent allusions to this amusing affair 
are still made in the papers, it may as well be explained here. Tho 
country was on the tiptoe of expectation for important news of the 
Irish rebellion. The steamer arrived. Among the despatches of 
the Tribune were three letters from Dublin, giving news not con- 
tained in the newspapers. The Tribune " without vouching for the 
accuracy of the statements," made haste to publish the letters, 
with due glorification. This is one of them : 

Dublin, Aug. 3, 1848. 

"No newspaper here dare tell the truth concerning the battle of Slieve- 
namon, hut from all we can learn, the people have had a great victory. Gen. 
Macdonald, the commander of the British forces, is killed, and six thousand 
troops are killed and wounded. The road for three miles is covered with the 
dead. We also have the inspiring intelligence that Kilkenny and Limerick 
have been taken by the people. The people of Dublin have gone in thousands 
to assist in the country. Mr. John B. Dillon was wounded in both legs. Mr. 
Meagher was also wounded in both arms. It is generally expected that Dub- 
lin will rise and attack the jails on Sunday nighty {A'^g- 6.) 

"All the people coming in on the Railroad are cautioned and commanded 



284 THE YEAR 9F HOPE. 

not to tell the news. When the cars arrive, thousands of the Dublm people 
are waiting for the intelligence. The police drive away those who are seen 
asking questions. Why all this care of the government to prevent the spread 
of intelligence, unless it be that something has happened which they want 
kept as a secret ? If they had obtained a victory they would be very apt to 
let us know it. 

" We are informed that the 3d Bluffs (a regiment of Infantry) turned and 
fought with the people. The 31st regiment, at Athlone, have also declared for 
the people, and two regiments have been sent to disarm them. 

" The mountain of Slievenamon is almost inaccessible. There is but one 
approach to it. It is said to be well supplied with provisions. It was a glo- 
rious place for our noble Smith O'Brien to select. It is said he has sixty 
thousand men around him, with a considerable supply of arms, ammunition, 
and cannon. In '98, the rebels could not be taken from Slievenamon until 
they chose to come out themselves. 

" A lady who came to town yesterday, and who had passed the scene of bat- 
tle, said that for three miles the stench arising from the dead men and horses 
was almost suffocating. 

" Wexford was quite peaceable till recently— but the government in its mad- 
ness proclaimed it, and now it is in arms to assist the cause. Now that we are 
fairly and spiritedly at it, are we not worthy of help 1 What are you doing 
for us 1 People of America, Ireland stretches her hand to you for assistance. 
Do not let us be disappointed. B." 

For a day or two, the Irisli and the friends of Ireland exulted ; 
but when the truth bceame known, their note was sadly changed, 
and the Tribune was widely accused of having originated a hoax. 
"Whereas, it was only too innocent ! 

The most remarkable feature of the affair was, that the letters 
were. written in good faith. The mind of Dublin was in a delirium 
of excitement, rumors of the wildest description were readily be- 
lieved, and the writer of the Slievegammon letters was as completely 
deceived as any of his readers. It need only be added, that Hor- 
ace Greeley never saw the letters till he saw them in print in the 
columns of the Tribune ; when they appeared, he was touring in 
the uttermost parts of Lake Superior. 

This was the year, too, of the Taylor and Fillmore ' campaign ;' 
from which, however, the Tribune held obstinately aloof till late in 
the summer. Mr. Greeley had opposed the nomination of Gen. 
Taylor from the day it began to be agitated. He opposed it at 
the nominating convention in Philadelphia, and used all his influ- 



THE SLIEVEGAMMON LETTERS. 285 

ence to secure the nomination of Henry Clay. As soon as the final 
ballot decided the contest in favor of Taylor, he rushed from the 
hall in disgust, and, on his return to ISTew York, could not sufficient- 
ly overcome his repugnance to the ticket, to print it, as the custom 
then was, at the head of his editorial columns. He ceased to oppose 
the election of Gen. Taylor, hut would do nothing to promote it. 
The list of candidates does not appear, in the usual place in the Tri- 
bune, as the regular 'Whig nominations,' till the twenty -ninth of 
September, and even then, our editor consented to its appearance 
with great reluctance. Two days before, a whig meeting had been 
held at Yauxhall Garden, which Mr. Greeley chanced to attend. 
He was seen by the crowd, and after many, and very vociferous 
calls, he made a short address, to the following effect : 

" I trust, fellow-citizens, I shall never be afraid nor ashamed to meet a 
Whig assemblage and express my sentiments on the political questions of the 
day. And although I have had no intimation till now that my presence here 
was expected or desired, I am the more ready to answer your call since I have 
heard intimations, even from this stand, that there was some mystery in my 
course to be cleared up — some astounding revelation with regard to it to be 
expected. And our eloquent friend from Kentucky even volunteered, in his 
remarks, to see me personally and get me right. If there be indeed any 
mystery in the premises, I will do my best to dispel it. But I have, in truth, 
nothing to reveal. I stated in announcing Gen. Taylor's nomination, the day 
after it was made, that I would support if I saw no other way to defeat the 
election of Lewis Cass. That pledge I have ever regarded. I shall faithfully 
redeem it. And, since there is now no chance remaining that any other than 
Gen. Taylor or Gen. Cass can be elected, I shall henceforth support the ticket 
nominated at Philadelphia, and do what I can for its election. 

" But I have not changed my opinion of the nomination of Gen. Taylor. I 
believe it was unwise and unjust. For Gen. Taylor, personally, I have ever 
spoken with respect ; but I believe a candidate could and should have been 
chosen more deserving, more capable, more popular. I cannot pretend to sup- 
port him with enthusiasm, for I do not feel any. 

" Yet while I frankly avow that I would do little merely to make Gen. Tay- 
lor President, I cannot forget that others stand or fall with him, and that 
among them are Fillmore and Fish anu Patterson, with whom I have battled 
for the Whig cause ever since I was entitled to vote, and to whom I cannot 
now be unfaithful. I cannot forget that if Gen. Taylor be elected we shall in 
all probability have a Whig Congress; if Gen. Cass is elected, a Loco-Foco 
Congress. Who can ask me to throw away all these because of my objections 
to Gen. Taylor 7 



286 THE YEAR OF HOPE. 

"And then the question of Free Soil, what shall be the fate of thatl 1 
presume there are here some Free Soil men ['Yes ! Yes! all Free Soil !'] — I 
mean those to whom the question of extending or restricting Slavery out- 
weighs all other considerations. I ask these what hope they have of keeping 
Slavery out of California and New- Mexico with Gen. Cass President, and a 
Loco-Foco Congress 7 I have none. And I appeal to every Free Soil Whig 
to ask himself this question — ' How would South Carolina and Texas wish you 
to vote V Can you doubt that your bitter adversaries would rejoice to hear 
that you had resolved to break off from the Whig party and permit Gen Cass 
to be chosen President, with an obedient Congress 7 I cannot doubt it. And 
I cannot believe that a wise or worthy course, which my bitterest adversaries 
would gladly work out for me. 

" Of Gen. Taylor's soundness on this question, I feel no assurance, and can 
give none. But I believe him clearly pledged by his letters to leave legisla- 
tion to Congress, and not attempt to control by his veto the policy of the coun- 
try. I believe a Whig Congress will not consent to extend Slavery, and that a 
Whig President will not go to war with Congress and the general spirit of his 
party. So believing, I shall support the Whig nominations with a view to the 
triumph of Free Soil, trusting that the day is not distant when an amend- 
ment of the Federal Constitution will give the appointment of Postmasters 
and other local officers to the People, and strip the President of the enormous 
and anti- republican patronage which now causes the whole Political action of 
the country to hinge upon its Presidential Elections. Such are my views ; 
such will be my course. I trust it will no longer be pretended that there is 
any mystery about them." 

This speech was received with particular demonstrations of ap- 
proval. It was felt that a serious obstacle to Gen. Taylor's success 
was removed, and that noio the whig party would march on in an 
unbroken phalanx to certain victory. 

The day which secured its triumph elected Horace Greeley to a 
:<eat in the House of Representatives, which the death of a member 
had made vacant. He was elected for one session only, and that, 
the short one of three months. How he came to be nominated lias 
been explained by himself in a paragraph on the corruptive machin- 
ery of our primary elections : " An editor of the Tribune was once 
nominated through that machinery. So he was — to serve ninety 
days in Congress — and he does n't feel a bit proud of it. But let 
it be considered that the Convention was not chosen to nominate 
liim, and did not (we presume) think of doing any such thing, 



HIS ELECTION TO CONGRESS. 287 

until it had unanimously nominated another, who unexpectedly de- 
clined, and then one of us was pitched upon to supply his place. 
TVe don't know whether the Primaries were as corrupt then as now 
or not ; our impression is that they have been growing steadily 
worse and worse — but no matter — let us have them reformed." 

His nomination introduced great spirit into the contest, and he 
was voted for with enthusiasm, particularly by two classes, work- 
ing-men and thinking-men. His majority over his opponent was 
3,177, the whole number of votes being 5,985. His majority con- 
siderably exceeded that of Gen. Taylor in the same wards. At 
the same election Mr. Brooks, of the Express, was elected to a seat 
in the House, and his ' Card' of thanksgiving to those who had 
voted for him, elicited or suggested the following from Mr. 
Greeley : 

" TO THE ELEOTOES OF THE VITH CONGEESSIONAL DISTEIOT. 

" The undersigned, late a candidate for Congress, respectfully returns hb 
thanks — first, to his political opponents for the uniform kindness and considera- 
tion with which he was treated by them throughout the canvass, and the un- 
solicited suffrages with which he was honored by many of them ; secondly, to 
the great mass of his political brethren, for the ardent, enthusiastic and effect- 
ive support which they rendered him ; and, lastly, to that small portion of 
the "Whig electors who saw fit to withhold from him their votes, thereby 
nearly or quite neutralizing the support he received from the opposite party. 
Clo-iming for himself the right to vote for or against any candidate of his 
party as his own sense of right and duty shall dictate, he very freely accords 
to all others the same liberty, without offense or inquisition. 

" During the late canvass I have not, according to my best recollection, 
spoken of myself, and have not replied in any way to any sort of attack or 
imputation. I have in no manner sought to deprecate the objections, nor to 
soothe the terrors of that large and most influential class who deem my ad- 
vocacy of Land Reform and Social Ee-organization synonymous with In- 
fidelity and systematic Robbery. To have entered upon explanations or vin- 
dications of my views on these subjects in the crisis of a great National 
struggle, which taxed every energy, and demanded every thought, comported 
neither with my leisure nor my inclination. 

" Neither have I seen fit at any time to justify nor allude to my participa- 
tion in the efforts made here last summer to aid the people of Ireland in their 
anticipated struggle for Liberty and Independence. I shall not do so now. 
What I did then, in behalf of the Irish millions, I stand ready to do again. 



288 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

SO far as my means will permit, when a similar opportunity, with a like pros- 
pect of success, is presented — and not for them only, but for any equally op- 
pressed and suflfering people on the face of the earth. If any ' extortion and 
plunder' were contrived and perpetrated in the meetings for Ireland at 
Vauxhall last season, I am whoUy imconscious of it, though I ought to be as 
well informed as to the alleged ' extortion and plunder' as most others, whether 
my information were obtained in the character of conspirator or that of vic- 
tim. I feel impelled, however, by the expressions employed in Mr. Brooks's 
card, to state that I have found nothing like an inclination to ' extortion and 
plunder' in the councils of the leading friends of Ireland in this city, and no- 
thing like a suspicion of such baseness among the thousands who sustained and 
cheered them in their efforts. All the suspicions and imputations to which 
those have been subjected, who freely gave their money and their exer- 
tions in aid of the generous though ineffectual effort for Ireland's liberation, 
have originated with those who never gave that cause a prayer or a shilling, 

and have not yet traveled beyond them. 

" Respecttully, 

"Horace Gbeelet. 

"NewYork, Nov. 8, 1848." 



CHAPTER XXIII, 



THEEE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

His objects a3 a Member of Congress— His first acts— The Chaplain hypocrisy— Thij 
Laud Reform Bill— Distributing the Documents— OfiFers a novel Resolution— The 
Mileage Expos6 — Congressional delays — Explosion in the House — Mr. Turner's ora- 
tion — Mr. Greeley defends himself— The Walker Tariff— Congress in a pet— Speech 
at the Printers' Festival— The House in good humor— Traveling dead-head— Per- 
sonal explanations — A dry hawl — The amendment game — Congressional dignity — 
Battle of the books— The Recruiting System— The last night of the Session— The 
♦ usual gratuity'— The Inauguration Ball— Farewell to his constituents. 

In the composition of this work, I have, as a rule, abstained from 
the impertinence of panegyric, and most of the few sentences of 
an applausive nature which escaped my pen were promptly erased 
on the first perusal of tl;ie passages which they disfigured. Of a 
good action, the simplest narrative is the best panegyric ; of a bad 
a'^tion, the best justification is the wTwle truth about it. Therefore, 




\ ^t -^ 



HIS OBJECTS AS A MEMBER OF CONGRESS. 289 

though Horace Greeley's career in Congress is that part of his life 
•which I regard with unmingled admiration, and though lue conduct 
of his enemies during that period fills me with inexpressible disgust, 
I shall present here little more than a catalogue of his acts and en- 
deavors while he held a place in the National bear-garden. 

He seems to have kept two objects in view, during those three 
turbulent and exciting months : 1, to do his duty as a Pwepresentative 
of the People ; 2, to let the people know exactly and fully what 
manner of place the House of Kepresentatives is, by what methods 
their business is kept from being done, and under what pretexts 
their money is plundered. The first of these objects kept him con- 
stantly in his place on the floor of the House. The second he ac- 
complished by daily letters to the Tribune, written, not at his desk 
in the House, but in his room before and after each day's hubbub. 
It will be convenient to arrange this chapter in the form of a jour- 
nal. 

Dec. 4th. This was Monday, the first day of the session. Horace 
Greeley ' took the oaths and his seat.' 

Dec. 5th. He gave notice of his intention to bring in a bill to 
discourage speculation in the public lands, and establish homesteads 
upon the same. 

Dec. 6th. He wrote a letter to the Tribune, in which he gave 
his first impressions of the House, and used some plain English. 
He spoke strongly upon the dishonesty of members drawing pay 
and yet not giving attendance at the early sessions, though the 
House had a hundred bills ready for conclusive action, and every 
day lost at the outset insures the defeat of ten bills at the close. 
As a specimen of the plain English, take this : 

" On the third day, the Senate did not even succeed in forming a quorum ; 
out of fifty-seven or eight members, vpho are all sure to be in for their pay 
and mileage, only twenty-nine appeared in their seats ; and the annual hy- 
pocrisy of electing a chaplain had to go over and waste another day. If either 
House had a chaplain who dare preach to its members what they ought to hear 
— of their faithlessness, their neglect of duty, their iniquitous waste of time, 
and robbery of the public by taking from the treasury money which they have 
not even attempted to earn — then there would be some sense in the chaplain 
business ; but any ill-bred Nathan or Elijah who should undertake such a job 

13 



290 THREE MONTHS Ilf CONGRESS. 

rrould be kicked out in short order. So the chaplaincy remains a thing cf 
grimace and mummery, nicely calculated to help some flockless and complai 
sant shepherd to a few hundred dollars, and impose on devout simpletons an 
exalted notion of the piety of Congress. Should not the truth be spoken 7 
******** 

"But in truth the great sorrow is, that so many of the Members of Con- 
gress, as of men in high station elsewhere, are merely dexterous jugglers, or 
the tools of dexterous jugglers, with the cup and balls of politics, shuffled into 
responsible places as a reward for past compliances, or in the hope of being 
there made useful to the inventors and patentees of their intellectual and 
moral greatness. To such men, the idea of anybody's coming to Congress for 
anything else than the distinction and the plunder, unless it be in the hope of 
intriguing their way up to some still lazier and more lucrative post, is so irre- 
sistibly comic — such an exhibition of jolly greenness, that they cannot contem- 
plate it without danger of explosion." 

Dec. IBth. Mr. Greeley introduced the Land Keform bill, of 
which he had given notice. It provided : 

1. That any citizen, and any alien who had declared his intention 
of becoming a citizen, may file a pre-emption claim to 160 acres of 
Public Land, settle upon it, improve it, and have the privilege of 
buying it at any time within seven years of filing the claim, at the 
Government price of $1 25 per acre : provided^ that he is not the 
owner or claimant of any other real estate. 

2. That the Land office where a claim is filed, shall issue a "War- 
rant of Pre-emption, securing the claimant in seven years' possess- 
ion. 

3. That, after five years' occupancy, a warrant-holder who makes 
oath of his intention to reside on and cultivate his land for life shall 
become the owner of any forty acres of his claim which he may 
select ; the head of a family eighty acres. 

4. That the price of public lands, when not sold to actual settlers, 
shall be five dollars per acre. 

5. That false affidavits, made to procure land under the provisions 
of this bill, shall be punished by three years' hard labor in a State 
prison, by a fine not exceeding $1,000, and by the loss of the land 
fraudulently obtained. 

Dec. IWh. The following notice appeared in the Tribune: 

*' In reference to many requests for copies of the President's Message and 



OFFERS A NOVEL RESOLUTION.' 201 

accompanying Documents, I desire to state that such Message and Documents 
are expected to cover twelve to fourteen hundred printed octavo pages, and 
to include three maps, the engraving of which will probably delay the publi- 
cation for two or three weeks yet. I shall distribute my share of them as soon 
as possible, and make them go as far as they will ; but I cannot satisfy half 
the demands upon me. As each Senator will have nearly two hundred copies, 
while Representatives have but about sixty each, applications to Senators, 
especially from the smaller States, are obviously the most promising." 

Dec. 18^A. Mr. Greeley offered the following resolution in the 
House : 

" Resolved, That the Secretary of the Navy be requested to inquire intc 
and report upon the expediency and feasibility of temporarily employing the 
whole or a portion of our national vessels, now on the Pacific station, in the 
transportation, at moderate rates, of American citizens and their effects from 
Panama and the Mexican ports on the Pacific to San Francisco in California." 

This was the year of the gold fever. The fate of the above reso- 
lution may be given in its proposer's own words 

"Monday," he wrote, "was expressly a resolution day; and (the order 
commencing at Ohio) it was about 2 o'clock before New York Avas called, and 
I had a chance to offer the foregoing. It was received, but could not be acted 
on except by unanimous consent (which was refused) until it shall have laid 
over one day — when of course it will never be reached again. When the 
States had been called through, I rose and asked the House to consider the 
above as modified so as to have the inquiry made by its own Naval Commit- 
tee instead of the Secretary of the Navy — thus bringing its immediate consid- 
eration within the rules. No use — two or three on the other side sang out 
' Object,' ' Object,' and the resolution went over — as all resolutions which any 
member indicates a purpose to debate must do. So the resolution cannot be 
reached again this Session." 

Dec. 12th. Mr. Greeley made what the reporters styled 'a plain 
and forcible speech,' on the tariff, in which he animadverted upon 
a passage of the Message, wherein the President had alluded to 
manufacturers as an ' aristocratic class, and one that claimed exclu- 
sive privileges.' Mr. Greeley walked into the President. 

Dtc. 22(^. On this day appeared in the Tribune, the famous 
Congressional Mileage Expose. The history of this expose is 
briefly related by Mr. Greeley, in the Whig Almanac for 1850. 



292 .THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

•' Early in December, I called on the Sergeant-at-Arms, for some money on 
account, he being paymaster of the House. The Schedule used by that oflBcer 
was placed before me, showing the amount of mileage respectively accorded 
to every member of the House. Many of these amounts struck me as ex- 
cessive, and I tried to recollect if any publication of all the allowances in a 
like case had ever been made through the journals, but could not remember 
any such publicity. On inquiry, I was informed that the amounts were regu- 
larly published in a certain document entitled ' The Public Accounts,' of which 
no considerable number was printed, and which was obviously not intended 
for popular distribution. [It is even omitted in this document for the year 
1848, printed since I published my expose, so that I can now find it in no pub- 
lic document whatever.] I could not remember that I had ever seen a copy, 
though one had been obtained and used by my assistant in making up last 
year's Almanac. It seemed to me, therefore, desirable that the facts should 
be brought to the knowledge of the public, and I resolved that it should be 
done. 

" But how 7 To have picked out a few of what seemed to me the most fla- 
grant cases of overcharge, and print these alone, would be to invite and secure 
the reputation of partiality, partisanship, and personal animosity. No other 
course seemed so fair as to print the mileage of each member, with necessary 
elucidations. I accordingly employed an ex-clerk in one of the departments, 
and instructed him to make out a tabular expose as follows : 

" 1. Name of each member of the House ; 

" 2. Actual distance from his residence to "Washington by the shortest post- 
route ; 

" 3. Distance for which he is allowed and paid mileage ; 

*' 4. Amount of mileage received by him ; 

" 5. Excess of mileage so received over what would have been if the dis- 
tance had been computed by the shortest or most direct mail-route. 

" The expose was made out accordingly, and promptly forwarded to the Tri- 
bune, in which it appeared." 

In the remarks which introduced the tabular statement, Mr. 
Greeley expressly and pointedly laid the blame of the enormous ex- 
cess to the law. "Let no man," he said "jump at the conclusion 
that this excess has been charged and received contrary to law. 
The fact is otherwise. The members are all honorable men — ^if any 
irreverent infidel should doubt it, we can silence him by referring 
to the prefix to their names in the newspapers, and we presume 
each has charged just what the law allows him. That law ex- 
pressly says that each shall receive eight dollars for every twenty 
miles travelled in coming to and returning from Congress, ' by the 



THE MILEAGE EXP0S6. . 293 

usually traveled route ;' and of course if the route usually traveled 
from California to Washington is around Cape Horn, or the mem- 
bers from that embryo State shall choose to think it is — they will 
each be entitled to charge some $12,000 mileage per session, accord- 
ly. We assume that each has charged precisely what the law al- 
lows him, and thereupon we press home the question — " Ought not 
THAT LAW to 1)6 amended f " 

It appeared from the statement, that the whole number of " cir- 
cuitous miles" charged was 183031, which, at forty cents a mile, 
amounted to $73,492 60. With about twelve exceptions, it showed 
that every member of the Senate and House had drawn more mile- 
age than he ought to have been legally entitled to, the excess vary- 
ing in amount from less than two dollars to more than a thousand 
dollars. Viewed merely as a piece of editorship, this mileage ex- 
pose was the best hit ever made by a New York paper. The effect 
of it upon the town was immediate and immense. It flew upon 
the wings of the country press, and became, in a few days, the 
talk of the nation. Its effect upon Congress, and upon the subse- 
quent congressional career of its author, we shall see in a moment. 

Dec. 23^. Mr. Greeley wrote a letter to the Tribune, in which 
he explained the manoeuvring by which Congress, though it can- 
not legally adjourn over for more than three consecutive days, 
generally contrives to be idle during the whole of the Christmas 
holidays ; i. e. from a day or two before Christmas, to a day or two 
after New Year's. "I was warned," he wrote, "when going to 
Baltimore last evening, that I might as well keep on to New York, 
as nothing would be done till some time in January. But I came 
back, determined to see at least how it was done." It was ' done' 
by making two bites at the cherry, adjourning first from Saturday 
to Wednesday ; and, after a little show of work on Wednesday, 
Thursday and Friday, adjourning again till after New Year's day. 
Mr. Greeley spoke in opposition to the adjournment, and demanded 
the yeas and nays ; but they were refused, and the first bite was 
consummated. " The old soldiers" of the House were too much for 
him, he said ; but he took care to print the names of those who 
voted for the adjournment. 

Dec. ^Ith. To-day the pent-up rage of Congress at the Mileage 



Hi i THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

Expose, whicli had been fermenting for three days, burst forth ; and 
the gentleman who knocked out the bung, so to speak, was no other 
than Mr. Sawyer, of Ohio, Mr. Sausage Sawyer of the Tribune. 
Mr, Sawyer was ' down' in the Expose for an excess of $281 60, 
and he rose to a ' question of privilege.' A long and angry de- 
bate ensued, first upon the question whether the Expose could be 
debated at all ; and secondly, if it could, what should be done about 
it. It was decided, after much struggle and turmoil, that it was a 
proper subject of discussion, and Mr. Turner, of Illinois, whose excess 
amounted to the interesting sum of $998 40, moved a series of 
resolutions, of which the following was the most important : 

" Resolved, That a publication made in the New York Tribune on the 
day of December, 1848, in which the mileage of members is set forth and 
commented on, be referred to a Committee, with instructions to inquire 
into and report whether said publication does not amount, in substance, to an 
allegation of fraud against most of the members of this House in this matter 
of their mileage ; and if, in the judgment of the Committee, it does amount to 
an allegation of fraud, then to inquire into it, and report whether that allega- 
tion is true or false." 

The speecb by whicli Mr. Turner introduced his resolutions was 
not conceived in the most amiable spirit, nor delivered with that 
'ofty composure which, it is supposed, should characterize the elo- 
cution of a legislator. These sentences from it will suffice for a 
specimen : 

" He now wished to call the attention of the House particularly to these 
charges made by the editor of the New York Tribune, most, if not all, of which 
charges he intended to show were absolutely false ; and that the individual 
who made them had either been actuated by the low, groveling, base, and 
malignant desire to represent the Congress of the nation in a false and un- 
enviable light before the country and the world, or that he had been actuated 
by motives still more base — by the desire of acquiring an ephemeral notoriety, 
by blazoning forth to the world what the writer attempted to show was fraud. 
The whole article abounded in gross errors and wilfully false statements, and 
was evidently prompted by motives as base, unprincipled and corrupt as ever 
actuated an individual in wielding his pen for the public press. 

" Perhaps the gentleman (he begged pardon), or rather the individual, per- 
haps the thing, that penned that article was not aware that his (Mr. T.'s) por- 
tion of the country was not cut up by railroads and traveled by stage-coaches 



EXPLOSION IN THE HOUSE. 295 

and other direct means of public conveyance, like the omnibuses in the City of 
New York, between all points ; they had no other channel of communication 
except the mighty lakes or the rivers of the West ; he could not get here in 
nny other way. The law on the subject of Mileage authorized the members 
to charge upon the most direct usually-traveled route. Now, he ventured the 
assertion that there was not an individual in his District who ever came to 
this city, or to any of the North-eastern cities, who did not come by the way 
of the lakes or the rivers. 

********* 
" He did not know but he was engaged in a very small business. A gentle- 
man near him suggested that the writer of this article would not be believed 
anyhow ; that, therefore, it was no slander. But his constituents, living two 
or three thousand miles distant, might not be aware of the facts, and therefore 
it was that he had deemed it necessary to repel the slanderous charges and 
imputations of fraud, so far as they concerned him." 

Other honorable gentlemen followed, and discoursed eloquent dis- 
cord in a similar strain. Mr. Greeley sat with unruffled composure 
and heard himself vilified for some hours without attempting to' 
reply. At length, in a pause of the storm, he arose and gave no- 
tice, that when the resolutions were disposed of he should rise to a 
privileged question. The following sprightly conversation ensued: 

" Mr. Thompson, of Indiana, moved that the resolutions be laid on the table. 

" The Yeas and Nays were asked and ordered ; and, being taken, were — 
Yeas 28, Nays 128. 

" And the question recurring on the demand for the previous question : 

"Mr. Fries inquired of the Speaker whether the question was susceptible 
of division. 

" The Speaker said that the question could be taken separately on each res- 
olution. 

"A number of members here requested Mr. Evans to withdraw the demand 
for the previous question (i. e. permit Mr. Greeley to speak). 

" Mr. Evans declined to withdraw the motion, and desired to state the rea- 
son why he did so. The reason was, that the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Greeley] had spoken to an audience to which the members of this House could 
not speak. If the gentleman wished to assail any member of this House, let 
him do so here. 

•' The Speaker interposed, and was imperfectly heard, but was understood 
to eay that it was out of order to refer personally to gentlemen on this floor. 

" Mr. Evans said he would refer to the editor of the Tribune, and he insist- 
ed that the gentleman was not entitled to reply. 

[" Loud cries from all parts of the House, ' Let him speak,' with mingling 
dissent.] 



296 THUEE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

" The question was then taken on the demand for the previous question. 

" But the House refused to second it. 

" Mr. Greeley, after alluding to the comments that had been made upon the 
article in the Tribune relative to the subject of JNIileage, and the abuse which 
had notoriously been practiced relating to it, said he had heard no gentleman 
quote one word in that article imputing an illegal charge to any member of 
this House, imputing anything but a legal, proper charge. The whole ground 
of the argument was this : Ought not the law to be changed? Ought not the 
mileage to be settled by the nearest route, instead of what was called tho 
usually-traveled route, which authorized a gentleman coming from the center 
of Ohio to go around by Sandusky, Albany, New York, Philadelphia, and 
Baltimore, and to charge mileage upon that route. He did not object to any 
gentleman's taking that course if he saw fit; but was that the route upon 
which the mileage ought to be computed'? 

" Mr. Turner interposed, and inquired if the gentleman wrote that article? 

" Mr. Greeley replied that the introduction to the article on mileage was writ- 
tcii Dy himself ; the transcript from the books of this House and from the ac- 
counts of the Senate was made by a reporter, at his direction. That reporter, 
who was formerly a clerk in the Post-Office Department, [Mr. Douglass How- 
ard,] had taken the latest book in the Department, which contained the dis- 
tances of the several post-offices in the country from Washington ; and from 
that book he had got — honestly, he knew, though it might not have been en- 
tirely accurate in an instance or two — the official list of the distances of the 
several post-offices from this city. In every case, the post-office of the mem- 
ber, whether of the Senate or the House, had been looked out, his distance as 
charged set down, then the post-office book referred to, and the actual, honest 
distance by the shortest route set down opposite, and then the computation 
made how much the charge was an excess, not of legal mileage, but of what 
would be legal, if the mileage was computed by the nearest mail route. 

" Mr. King, of Georgia, desired, at this point of the gentleman's remarks, 
to say a word; the gentleman said that the members charged; now, he (Mr. 
K.) desired to say, with reference to himself, that from the first, he had always 
refused to give any information to the Committee on Mileage with respect to 
the mileage to which he would be entitled. He had told them it was their 
special duty to settle the matter ; that he would have nothing to do with it. 
He, therefore, had charged nothing. 

" Mr. Greeley (continuing) said he thought all this showed the necessity of 
a new rule on the subject, for here they saw members shirking off, shrinking 
from the responsibility, and throwing it from one place to another. Nobody 
made up the account, but somehow an excess of $60,000 or $70,000 was 
charged in the accounts for mileage, and was paid from the Treasury. 

" Mr. King interrupted, and asked if he meant to charge him (Mr. K.) witlj 
shirking? "Was that the gentleman's remark 7 



MR. GREELEY DEFENDS HIMSELF. 297 

Mr. Greeley replied, that he only said that by some means or other, this 
excess of mileage was charged, and was paid by the Treasury. This money 
ought to be saved. Tho same rule ought to be applied to members of Con 
gress that was applied to other persons. 

" Mr. King desired to ask the gentleman from New York if he had correctly 
understood his language, for he had heard him indistinctly 1 He (Mr. K.) 
had made the positive statement that he had never had anything to do with 
reference to the charge of his mileage, and he had understood the gentleman 
from New York to speak of shirking from responsibility. He desired to know 
if the gentleman applied that term to him? 

" Mr. Greeley said he had applied it to no member. 

" Mr. King asked, why make use of this term, then 1 

"Mr. Greeley's reply to this interrogatory was lost in /fee confusion which 
prevailed in consequence of members leaving their seats and coming forward 
to the area in the center. 

"The Speaker called the House to order, and requested gentlemen to take 
their seats. 

" Mr. Greeley proceeded. There was no intimation in the article that any 
member had made out his own account, but somehow or other the accounts had 
been so made up as to make a total excess of some S60,000 or $70,000, charge- 
able upon the Treasury. The general facts had been stated, to show that the 
law ought to be different, and there were several cases cited to show how the 
law worked badly ; for instance, from one district in Ohio, the member for- 
merly charged for four hundred miles, when he came on his own horse all the 
way ; but now the member from the same district received mileage for some 
eight or nine hundred miles. Now, ought that to be so 7 The whole argu- 
ment turned on this ; now, the distances were traveled much easier than for- 
merly, and yet more, in many cases much more, mileage was charged. The 
gentleman from Ohio who commenced this discussion, had made the point that 
there was some defect, some miscalculation in the estimate of distances. Ho 
could not help it ; they had taken the post-of&ce books, and relied on them, 
and if any member of the press had picked out a few members of this House, 
and held up their charges for mileage, it would have been considered invidious. 

" Mr. Turner called the attention of the member from New York to the fact 
that the Postmaster General himself had thrown aside that Post Office book, 
in consequence of its incorrectness. He asked the gentleman if he did not 
know that fact ? 

" Mr. Greeley replied that the article itself stated that the Department did 
not charge mileage upon that book. Every possible excuse and mitigation 
had been given in the article ; but he appealed to the House — they were the 
masters of the law — why would they not change it, and make it more just and 
equal 1 

" Mr. Sawyer wished to be allowed to ask the gentleman from New York a 

13* 



298 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

question. His complaint was that the article had done him injustice, by set- 
ting him down as some 300 miles nearer the seat of Government than his col- 
league [Mr. Schenck], although his colleague had stated before the House that 
he [Mr. Sawyer] resided some 60 or 70 miles further. 

" Now, he wanted to know why the gentleman had made this calculation 
against him, and in favor of his colleague 7 

" Mr. Greeley replied that he begged to assure the gentleman from Ohio 
that he did not think he had ever been in his thoughts from the day he 
had come here until the present day ; but he had taken the figures from the 
Post Office book, as transcribed by a former Clerk in the Post Office Depart- 
ment." 

After mucli more sparring of the same description, the resolu- 
tions were adopted, the Committee was appointed, the House ad- 
journed, and Mr. Greeley went home and wrote a somewhat face- 
tious account of the day's proceedings. The most remarkable sen- 
tence in that letter was this : 

" It was hut yesterday that a Senator said to me that though he was utterly 
opposed to any reduction of Mileage, yet if the House did not stop passing 
Retrenchment bills for Buncombe, and then running to the Senate and beg- 
ging Senators to stop them there, he, for one, would vote to put through the 
next Mileage Reduction bill that came to the Senate, just to punish Members 
for their hypocrisy." 

Jan. Ind. Mr. Greeley offered a resolution calling on the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury to communicate to the House the advantages 
resulting from the imposition by the Tariff of 1846 of duties of 5 
and 10 per cent, on certain manufactures of wool and hemp, more 
than was imposed on the raw material, and if they were not advan- 
tageous, then to state what action was required. 

Jan. Srd. The resolution came up. 

" Mr. Wentworth objected to the Secretary of the Treasury being called 
upon for such information. If the gentleman from New York would apply to 
him [Mr. W.], he would give him his reasons, but he objected to this reference 
to the Secretary of the Treasury. He moved to lay it on the table, but with- 
drew it at the request of — 

" Mr. Greeley, who said it was well known that the Tariff of 1846 was 
prepared by the Secretary ; he had been its eulogist and defender, and he 
now wished for his views on the particular points specified. He had un- 
■^fficially more than thirty times called on the defenders of the Tariff of 1846 



CONGRESS IN A PET. 299 

to explain these things, but had never been able to get one, and now he wanted 
to go to headquarters. 

" Mr. Wentworth was not satified with this at all, and asked why the gentle- 
man from New York did not call on him. He was ready to give him any in- 
foi'mation he had. 

" Mr. Greeley — That call is not in order. [A laugh.] 

" Mr. W. — But he objected to the passage of a resolution imputing that the 
Secretary of the Treasury had dictated a Tariff bill to the House. 

" Mr. Washington Hunt — Does not the gentleman from Illinois know that 
the Committee of Ways and Means called upon the Secretary for a Tariff, and 
that he prepared and transmitted this Tariff to them? 

" Mr. Wentworth — I do not know anything about it. 

" Mr. Hunt — Well, the gentleman's ignorance is remarkable, for it was very 
generally known. 

" Mr. Wentworth renewed his motion to lay the resolution on the table, 
on which the Ayes and Noes were demanded, and resulted Ayes 86, Noes 87." 

Jan. 4tth. Congress, to-day, showed its spite at the mileage ex- 
pose in a truly extraordinary manner. At the last session of this 
very Congress the mileage of the Messengers appointed by the Elec- 
toral Colleges to bear their respective votes for President and Yice 
President to Washington, had been reduced to twelve and a half 
cents per mile each way. But now it was perceived by members 
that either the mileage of the Messengers must be restored or their 
own reduced. " Accordingly," wrote Mr. Greeley in one of his let- 
ters, " a joint resolution was promptly submitted to the Senate, 
doubling the mileage of Messengers, and it went through that ex- 
alted body very quickly and easily. I had not noticed that it had 
been definitively acted on at all until it made its appearance in the 
House to-day, and was driven through with indecent rapidity well 
befitting its character. No Committee was allowed to examine it, 
no opportunity was afforded to discuss it, but by whip and spur, 
Previous Question and brute force of numbers, it was rushed through 
the necessary stages, and sent to the President for his sanction." 

The injustice of this impudent measure is apparent from the fact, 
that on the reduced scale of compensation, messengers received from 
ten to twenty dollars a day during the period of their necessary ab- 
sence from home. " The messenger from Maine, for instance, brings 
the vote of his State five hundred and ninety-five miles, and need 
not be more than eight days absent from his business, at an expense 



was 



300 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

certainly not exceeding $60 in all. The reduced compensab-.. 
$148 75, paying his expenses and giving him $11 per day ov^, 

Jan. 7th. The Printers' Festival was held, this evening a^ Wash- 
ington, and Mr. Greeley attended it, and made a speech. His re- 
marks were designed to show, that " the interests of tradesmen 
generally, but especially of the printing and publishing trade, includ- 
ing authors and editors, was intimately involved in the establish- 
ment and maintenance of high rates of compensation for labor in 
all departments of industry. It is of vital interest to us all that the 
entire community shall be buyers of books and subscribers to jour- 
nals, which they cannot be unless their earnings are sufficient to 
supply generously their physical wants and leave some surplus for 
intellectual aliment. We ought, therefore, as a class, from regard 
to our own interests, if from no higher motive, to combine to keep 
up higher rates of compensation in our own business, and to favor 
every movement in behalf of such rates in other calhngs." 

He concluded by offering a sentiment : 

" The. Lightning of Intelligence — Now crashing ancient tyrannies and top - 
pling down thrones — May it swiftly irradiate the world." 

Jan. 9th. The second debate on the subject of Mileage occurred 
to-day. It arose thus : 

The following item being under consideration, viz. : " For Com- 
pensation and Mileage of Senators, Members of the House of Rep- 
resentatives, and Delegates, $768,200," Mr. Embree moved to amend 
it by adding thereto the following: ^^ Provided, That the Mileage 
of Members of both Houses of Congress shall hereafter be estimated 
and charged upon the shortest mail-route from their places of resi- 
dence, respectively, to the city of Washington." 

The debate which ensued was long and animated, but wholly 
different in tone and manner from that of the previous week. 
Strange to relate, the Expose found, on this occasion, stanch de- 
fenders, and the House was in excellent humor. The reader, if he 
feels curious to know the secret of this happy change, may find it, 
I think, in that part of a speech delivered in the course of the de- 
bate, where the orator said, that " he had not seen a single news- 
paper of the country which did not approve of the course which 



TRAVELLING DEAD-HEAD 301 

the gentleman from New York had taken ; and he beheved there 
was no instance where the Editor of a paper had spoken out the 
genuine sentiments of the people, and made any expression of dis- 
approbation in regard to the effort of the gentleman from New York 
to limit this unjustifiable taxation of Milage." 

The debate relapsed, at length, into a merry conversation on the 
subject of traveling ' dead-heads.'' 

'• Mr. Murphy said, when he came on, he left New York at 5 o'clock in the 
afternoon, and arrived at Philadelphia to supper ; and then entering the car 
again, he slept very comfortably, and was here in the morning at 8 o'clock. 
He lost no time. The mileage was ninety dollars. 

" Mr. Root would inquire of the gentleman from New York, whether he 
took his passage and came on as what the agents sometimes call a ' dead- 
head V [Laughter.] 

" Mr. Murphy replied (amid considerable merriment and laughter) that he 
did not know of more than one member belonging to the New York delegation 
to whom that application could properly attach. 

" Mr. Root said, although his friend from New York was tolerably expert 
in everything he treated of, yet he might not understand the meaning of the 
term he had used. He would inform him that the term ' dead-head,' was ap- 
plied by the steamboat gentlemen to passengers who were allowed to travel 
without paying their fare. [A great deal of merriment prevailed throughout 
the hall, upon this allusion, as it manifestly referred to the two editors, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Levin, and the gentleman from New York, 
Mr. Greeley.] But Mr. R. (continuing to speak) said he was opposed to all 
personalities. He never indulged in any such thing himself, and he never 
would favor such indulgence on the part of other gentlemen. 

" Mr. Levin. I want merely to say — 

" Mr. Root. I am afraid — 

[" The confusion of voices and merriment which followed, completely 
drowned the few words of pleasant explanation delivered here by Mr. Levin.] 

" Mr. Greeley addressed the chair. 

•' The Chairman. The gentleman from New York will suspend his remarks 
till the Committee shall come to order. 

" Order being restored — 

" Mr. Greeley said he did not pretend to know what the editor of the Phil- 
adelphia Sun, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Levin], had done. But 
if any gentleman, anxious about the matter, would inquire at the railroad 
offices in Philadelphia and Baltimore, he would there be informed that he (Mr. 
G.) never had passed over any portion of either of those roads free of charge 
— never in the world. One of the gentlemen interested had once told him ho 
might, but he never had. 



302 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

" Mr. Embree next obtained the floor, but gave way for 

'* Mr. Haralson, who moved that the Committee rise. 

*' Mr. Greeley appealed to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Haralson] to 
withhold his motion, while he might, by the courtesy of the gentleman from 
Indiana [Mr. Embree j, make a brief reply to the allusions which had been ^ 
made to him and his course upon this subject. He asked only for five minutes 
But 

" Mr. Haralson adhered to his motion, which was agreed to. 

" So the Committee rose and reported, ' No conclusion.' " 

Jan. lOtTi. The slave-trade in the District of Columbia was the 
subject of discussion, and the part which Mr. Greeley took in it, he 
thus described : 

" SLAVE-TRADE IN THE DISTRICT. 

ME. Greeley's remarks 

In Defence of Mr. GotVs Resolution^ (suppressed^ 

["Throughout the whole discussion of "Wednesday, Mr. Greeley struggled 
at every opportunity for the floor, and at first was awarded it, but the speaker, 
on reflection, decided that it belonged to Mr. "Wentworth of 111., who had made 
a previous motion. Had Mr. G. obtained the floor at any time, it was his in- 
tention to have spoken substantially as follows — the first paragraph being sug- 
gested by Mr. Sawyer's speech, and of course only meditated after that speech 
was delivered."] 

Then follows the speech, which was short, eloquent, and con- 
vincing. 

Jan. lltTi. The third debate on the mileage question. Mr. Gree- 
ley, who " had been for three days struggling for the floor," ob- 
tained it, and spoke in defence of his course. For two highly auto- 
biographical paragraphs of his speech, room must be found in these 
pages : 

"The gentleman saw fit to speak of my vocation as an editor, and to charge 
me with editing my paper from my seat on this floor. Mr. Chairman, I do 
not believe there is one member in this Hall who has written less in his seat 
this session than I have done. I have oeen too much absorbed in the (to me) 
iiovel and exciting scenes around me to write, and have written no editorial 
here. Time enough for that. Sir, before and after your daily sessions. But 
the gentleman either directly charged or plainly insinuated that I have neg- 



PERGONAL EXPLANATIONS. 303 

lected my duties as a member of this House to attend to my own private bus- 
iness. I meet this charge with a positive and circumstantial denial. Except 
a brief sitting one Private Bill day, I have not been absent one hour in all, 
nor the half of it, from the deliberations of this House. I have never voted 
for an early adjournment, nor to adjourn over. My name will be found re- 
corded on every call of the yeas and nays. And, as the gentleman insinuated 
a neglect of my duties as a member of a Committee (Public Lands,) I ap- 
peal to its Chairman for proof to any that need it, that I have never been ab- 
sent from a meeting of that Committee, nor any part of one ; and that I have 
rather sought than shunned labor upon it. And I am confident that, alike in 
my seat, and out of it, I shall do as large a share of the work devolving upon 
this House as the gentleman from Mississippi will deem desirable. 

"And now, Mr. Chairman, a word on the main question before us. I know 
very well — I knew from the first — what a low, contemptible, demagoguing 
business this of attempting to save public money always is. It is not a task 
for gentlemen — it is esteemed rather disreputable even for editors. Your 
gentlamenly work is spending — lavishing — distributing — taking. Savings are 
always such vulgar, beggarly, two-penny affairs — there is a sorry and stingy 
look about them most repugnant to all gentlemanly instincts. And beside, 
they never happen to hit the right place — it is always ' Strike higher !' ' Strike 
lower !' To be generous with other people's money — generous to self and 
friends especially, that is the way to bo popular and commended. Go ahead, 
and never care for expense ! — if your debts become inconvenient, you can re- 
pudiate, and blackguard your creditors as descended from Judas Iscariot ! — 
Ah ! Mr. Chairman, J was not rocked in the cradle of gentility !" 

Jan. 14th. He wrote out another speech on a noted slave case, 
which at that time was attracting much attention. This effort was 
entitled, " My Speech on Pacheco and his Negro." It was humor- 
ous, but it was a ' settler' ; and it is a pity there is not room for it 
here. 

Jan. 16th. The Mileage Committee made their report, exonerat- 
ing members, condemning the Expose, and asking to be excused 
from further consideration of the subject. 

Jan. 17th. A running debate on Mileage — many suggestions 
made for the alteration of the law — nothing done — the proposed 
reform substantially defeated. The following conversation occurred 
upon the subject of Mr. Greeley's own mileage. Mr. Greeley tells 
the story himself, heading his letter ' A Dry Hawl.' 

" The House having resolved itself again into a Committtee of the Whole, 



304 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

and taken up the Civil and diplomatic Appropriation Bill, on wliicli Mr. Murphy 
of New York had the floor, I stepped out to attend to some business, and was 
rather surprised to learn, on my way back to the Hall, that Mr. M. was mak- 
ing me the subject of his remarks. As I went in, Mr. M. continued — 

" Murphy. — As the gentleman is now in his seat, I will repeat what I have 
stated. I said that the gentleman who started this breeze about Mileage, by 
his publication in the Tribune, has himself charged and received Mileage by 
the usual instead of the shortest Mail Route. He charges me with taking 
$3 20 too much, yet I live a mile further than he, and charge but the same. 

" Greeley. — The gentleman is entirely mistaken. Finding my Mileage was 
computed at $184 for two hundred and thirty miles, and seeing that the short- 
est Mail Route, by the Post-Office Book of 1842, made the distance but two 
hundred and twenty-five miles, I, about three weeks ago, directed the Ser- 
geant-at-Arms to correct his schedule and make my Mileage §180 for two 
hundred and twenty- five miles. I have not inquired since, but presume he has 
done so. So that I do not charge so much as the gentleman from Brooklyn, 
though, instead of living nearer, I live some two or three miles further from 
this city than he does, or fully two hundred and twenty -nine miles by the 
shortest Post Route. 

"Richardson of Illinois. — Did not the gentleman make out his own ao • 
count at two hundred and thirty miles 1 

" Greeley. — Yes, sir, I did at first ; but, on learning that there was a 
shorter Post Route than that by which the Mileage from our city had been 
charged, I stepped at once to the Sergeant's room, informed him of the fact, 
and desired the proper correction. Living four miles beyond the New York 
Post Ofi&ce, I might fairly have let the account stand as it was, but I did 
not." 

Jan. 18th. Mr. Greeley's own suggestion witli regard to Mile- 
age appears in the Tribune : 

" 1. Reduce the Mileage to a generous but not extravagant allowance for 
the time and expense of travelling ; 

" 2. Reduce the ordinary or minimum pay to $5 per day, or (we prefer) S8 
for each day of actual service, deducting Sundays, days of adjournment 
within two hours from the time of assembling, and all absences not caused by 
sickness ; 

" 3. "Whenever a Member shall have served six sessions in either House, or 
both together, let his pay thenceforward be increased fifty per cent., and after 
he shall have served twelve years as aforesaid, let it be double that of an or- 
dinary or new Member ; 

" 4. Pay the Chairman of each Committee, and all the Members of the 
three most important and laborious Committees of each House, fifty per cent 



THE AMENDMENT GAME. SO* 

above the ordinary rates, and the Chairmen of the three ^or more) most re- 
sponsible and laborious Committees of eaeh House (say Ways and Means, Ju' 
diciary and Claims) double the ordinary rates ; the Speaker double or treble, 
as should be deemed just ; 

" 5. Limit the Long Sessions to four months, or half-pay thereafter." 

Jan. 20th. Another letter appears to-day, exposing some of the 
expedients by which the time of Congress is wasted, and the pub- 
lic business delayed. The bill for the appointment of Private 
Claims' Commissioners was before the House. If it had passed, 
Congress would have been relieved of one-third of its business, and 
the claims of individuals against the government would have had 
a chance of fair adjustment. But no. " Amendment was piled on 
amendment, half of them merely as excuses for speaking, and so 
were withdrawn as soon as the Chairman's hammer fell to cut off th-'> 
five-minute speech in full flow. The first section was finally worried 
through, and the second (there are sixteen) was mouthed over for 
half an hour or so. At two o'clock an amendment was ready to 
be voted on, tellers were ordered, and behold! no quorum. The 
roll was called over ; members came running in from the lobbies 
and lounging-places ; a large quorum was found present ; the Chair- 
man reported the fact to the Speaker, and the House relapsed into 
Committee again. The dull, droning business of proposing amend- 
ments which were scarcely heeded, making five-minute speeches 
that were not listened to, and taking votes where not half voted, 
and half of those who did were ignorant of what they were voting 
upon, proceeded some fifteen minutes longer, when the patriotic for- 
titude of the House gave way, and a motion that thb Committee 
rise prevailed." The bill has not yet been passed. Just claims 
clamored in vain for liquidation, and doubtful ones are bullied or 
manoeuvred through. 

Ja7i. 22d. To-day the House of Representatives covered itself 
with glory. Mr. Greeley proposed an additional section to the 
General Appropriation Bill, to the effect, that members should not 
be paid for attendance when they did not attend, unless their ab- 
sence was caused by sickness or public business. " At this very 
session," said Mr. Greeley in his speech on this occasion, "members 
have been absent for weeks together, attending to their private 



306 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

business, while this Committee is almost daily broken up for want 
pf a quorum in attendance. This is a gross wrong to their con- 
stituents, to the country, and to those members who remain in their 
seats, and endeavor to urge forward the public business." 

What followed is thus related by Mi-. Greeley in his letter to the 
Tribune ; 

" Whereupon, Hon. Henry C. Murphy, of Brooklyn, (it takes him !) rose and 
moved the following addition to the proposed new section : 

" ' And there shall also be deducted for such time from the compensation of 
mffmbers, who shall attend the sittings of the House, as they shall be employ- 
ed in writing for newspapers.' " 

" No objection being made, the House, with that exquisite sense of dignitj' 
and propriety which has characterized its conduct throughout, adopted this 
amendment. 

" And then the whole section was voted down. 

" Mr. Greeley next, with a view of arresting the prodigal habit which has 
grown up here of voting a bonus of $250 to each of the sub-clerks, messen- 
gers, pages, (fee, &c., (their name is Legion) of both Houses, moved the fol- 
lowing new section : 

" ' Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall not henceforth be lawful 
for either Houses of Congress to appropriate and pay from its Contingent 
Fund any gratuity or extra compensation to any person whatever; but every 
appropriation of public money for gratuities shall be lawful only when ex- 
pressly approved and passed by both Houses of Congress.' 

" This was voted down of course ; and on the last night or last but one of 
the session, a motion will doubtless be sprung in each house for the * usual ' 
gratuity to these already enormously overpaid attendants, and it will probably 
pass, though I am informed that it is already contrary to law. But what of 
that 7" 

Jan. Bd. An Honest Man in the House of Eepresentatives of the 
United States seemed to be a foreign element, a fly in its cup, an 
ingredient that would not mix, a novelty that disturbed its peace. It 
struggled hard to find a pretext for the expulsion of the offensive 
person ; but not finding one, the next best thing was to endeavor 
to show the country that Horace Greeley was, after all, no better 
than members of Congress generally. To-day occurred the cele- 
brated, yet pitiful. Battle of the Books. Congress, as every one 
knows, is accustomed annually to vote each member a small library 
of books, consisting of public documents, reports, statistics. Mr. 



BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 307 

Greeley appro zed the appropriation for reasons which will appear 
in a moment, and he knew the measure was sin^e to pass ; yet, un- 
willing to give certain blackguards of the House a handle against 
him and against the reforms with which he was identilQed, he voted 
formally against the appropriation. It is but fair to all concerned in 
the Battle, that an, account of it, published in the Congressional 
Globe, should be given here entire, or nearly so. Accordingly, 
here it is : 

"In the House of Representatives on Tuesday, while the General Appro- 
priation Bill was up, Mr. Edwards, of Ohio, offered the following amendment : 

^' Be it further enacted, That the sums of money appropriated in this bill 
for books be deducted from the pay of those members who voted for the appro- 
priation. •^ 

" Mr. Edwards, in explanation, said that he had voted in favor of the appro- 
priation, and was of course willing that the amendment should operate upon 
himself precisely as it would upon any other member. He had no apology to 
make for the vote he had given. He would send to the Clerk's table the New 
York 'Tribune' of January 18th, and would request the Clerk to read the 
paragraph which he (Mr. E.) had marked. 

" The clerk read the following : 

" ' And yet, Mr. Speaker, it has been hinted if not asserted on this floor that 
I voted for these Congressional books ! I certainly voted against them at 
every opportunity, when I understood the question. I voted against agreeing 
to that item of the report of the Committee of the Whole in favor of the De- 
ficiency bill, and, the item prevailing, I voted against the whole bill. I tried 
to be against them at every opportunity. But it seems that on some stand-up 
vote in Committee of the Whole, when I utterly misunderstood what was the 
question before the Committee, I voted for this item. Gentlemen say I did, 
and I must presume they are right. I certainly never meant to do so, and I 
did all in my power in the House to defeat this appropriation. But it is com- 
mon with me in incidental and hasty divisions, when I do not clearly under- 
stand the point to be decided, to vote with the Chairman of the Committee of 
Ways and Means, [Mr. Vinton,] who is so generally right and who has spec- 
ial charge of appropriation bills, and of expediting business generally. Thug 
only can I have voted for these books, as on all other occasions I certainly 
voted against them.' 

" The paragraph having been read : 

" Mr. Edwards (addressing Mr. Greeley) said, I wish to inquire of the gen- 
tleman from New York, if I anj in order, whether that is his editorial ? 

" Mr. Greeley rose. 

[Hubbub for some minutes. After which ] 



308 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

" Mr. Greeley said, every gentleman here must remember that that wae 
but the substance of what he had spoken on this floor. His colleague next 
him [Mr. Rumsey] had told him, that upon one occasion he (Mr. G.) had voted 
for the appropriation for books when he did not understand the vote. He (Mr. 
G.) had voted for tellers when a motion was made to pass the item ; but by 
mistake the Chairman passed over the motion for tellers, and counted him in 
favor of the item. 

" Mr. Edwards. I understand, then, that the gentleman voted without un- 
derstanding what he was voting upon, and that he would have voted against 
taking the books had he not been mistaken. 

" Mr. Greeley assented. 

" Mr. Edwards. I assert that that -declaration is unfounded in fact. I have 
the proof that the gentleman justified his vote both before and after the voting. 

" Mr. Greeley called for the proof. 

" fflh". Edwards said he held himself responsible, not elsewhere, but here, to 
prove that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] had justified his vote 
in favor of the books both before and after he gave that vote, upon the ground 
on which they all justified it, and that this editorial was an afterthought, writ- 
ten because he [Mr. G.] had been twitted by certain newspapers with having 
voted for the books. He held himself ready to name the persons by whom he 
could prove it. 

" [Loud cries of ' Name them ; name them.'J 

" Mr. Edwards (responding to the repeated invitations which were addressed 
to him) said, Charles Hudson, Dr. Darling, and Mr. Putnam. 

" [The excitement was very great, and there was much confusion in all 
parts of the Hall — many members standing in the aisles, or crowding forward 
to the area and the vicinity of Mr. Greeley.] 

" Mr. Greeley (addressing Mr. Edwards). I say, neither of these gentlemen 
will say so. 

" Mr. Edwards. I hold myself responsible for the proof. (Addressing Mr. 
Hudson). Mr. Hudson will come to the stand. [General laughter.] 

" Mr. Greeley. Now, if there is any gentleman who will say that he has un- 
derstood me to say that I voted for it understandingly, I call upon him to come 
forward. 

" Mr. Edwards. The gentleman calls for the testimony. Mr. Hudson is 
the man — Dr. Dnrling is the man. 

" [Members had again flocked into the area. There were cries of 'Hudson, 
Hudson,' ' down in front,' and great disorder throughout the House.] 

" The Chairman again earnestly called to order ; and all proceedings were 
arrested for the moment, in order to obtain order. 

"The House having become partially stilled — 

" Mr. Hudson rose and said : I suppose it is not in order for me to address 



BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. S09 

the Committee; but, as I have been called upon, if there is no objection, 1 
have no olyeciion on my part, to state what I have heard the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. GreeleyJ say. 

*' [Cries from all quarters, 'Hear him, hear him.'] 

" The Chairman. If there is no objection the gentleman can proceed. 

" No objection being made — 

" Mr. Hudson said, I can say, then, that on a particular day, when this 
book resolution had been before the House — as it was before the House several 
times, I cannot designate the day — but one day, when we had been passing 
upon the question of books, in walking from the Capitol, I fell in with my 
friend from New York, [Mr. Greeley ;] that we conversed from the Capitol 
down on to the avenue in relation to these books ; that he stated — as I under- 
stood him (and I think I could not have been mistaken) — that he was in favor 
of the purchase of the books ; that he either had or should vote for the books, 
and he stated two reasons : the one was, that some of these publications were 
of such a character that they would never be published unless there was some 
public patronage held out to the publishers ; and the other reason was, that 
the other class of these books at least contained important elements of his- 
tory, which would be lost unless gathered up and published soon, ttnd as the 
distribution of these books was to diffuse the information over the community, 
he was in favor of the purchase of these books ; and that he himself had suf- 
fered from not having access to works of this character. That was the sub- 
stance of the conversation. 

" Mr. Hudson having concluded — 

" [There were cries of ' Darling, Darling.'] 

" Mr. Darling rose and (no objection being made) proceeded to say : On one 
of the days on which we voted for the books now in question — the day that 
the appropriation passed the House — I was on my way from the Capitol, and, 
passing down the steps, I accidentally came alongside the gentleman from 
New York, [Mr. Greeley,] who was in conversation with another gentleman — 
a member of the House — whose name I do not recollect. I heard him (Mr. 
G.) say he justified the appropriation for the books to the members, on the 
ground of their diffusing general information. He said that in the City of 
New York he knew of no place where he could go to obtain the information 
contained in these books ; that although it was supposed that in that place the 
sources of information were much greater than in almost any other portion of 
the country, he would hardly know where to go in that City to find this infor- 
mation ; and upon this ground that he would support the resolution in favor 
of the books.. This conversation, the gentleman will recollect, took place going 
down from the west door of the Capitol and before we got to the avenue. 1 
do not now recollect the gentleman who was with the gentleman from New 
York. 

" Mr. Putnam rose amid loud cries of invitation, and (no objection being 



310 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

made,) said : As my name has been referred to in relation to this question, 
it is due perhaps to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Greeley] that I should 
state this : That some few days since the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Edwards] 
called upon me here, and inquired of me whether I had heard my colleague 
[Mr. Greeley] say anything in relation to his vote as to the books. I that 
morning had received the paper, and I referred him to the editorial contained 
therein which has been read by the Clerk ; but I have no recollection of stat- 
ing to the gentleman from Ohio that I heard my colleague say he justified the 
vote which he gave ; nor have I any recollection whatever that I ever heard 
my colleague say anything upon the subject after the vote given by him. 

" The gentleman from Ohio must have misunderstood me, and it is due to 
my colleague that this explanation should be made. 

" [Several voices : ' What did he say he/ore the vote 7'] 

"I have no recollection [said Mr. P.] that I ever heard him say anything. 

" Mr. Edwards rose, and wished to know if any of his five minutes was 
leftl 

" No reply was heard ; but, after some conversation, (being allowed to pro- 
ceed,) he said, I have stated that I have no apologies to make for giving this 
vote. I voted for these books for the very reasons which the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Greeley] gave to these witnesses. I stated that I could prove 
by witnesses that the gentleman has given reasons of this kind, and that that 
editorial was an afterthought. If the House requires any more testimony, 
it can be had ; but out of the mouths of two witnesses he is condemned. That 
is scriptural as well as legal. 

" I have not risen to retaliate for anything this editor has said in reference 
to the subject of mileage. I have been classed among those who have re- 
ceived excessive mileage. I traveled in coming to Washington forty-three 
miles further than the Committee paid me ; but I stated before the Committee 
the reasons why I made the change of route. I had been capsized once 

" The Chairman interposed, and said he felt bound to arrest this debate. 

" [Cries of ' Greeley ! Greeley !'] 

"Mr. Greeley rose 

" The Chairman stated that it would not be in order for the gentleman to 
address the House while there was no question pending. 

" [Cries of ' Suspend the rules ; hear him.'] 

" Mr. Tallmadge rose and inquired if his colleague could not proceed by gen- 
eral consent 7 

" The Chairman replied in the afiirmative. 

" No objection was made, and 

« Mr. Greeley proceeded. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hud- 
son] simply misunderstood only one thing. He states me to have urged the 
considerations which he urged to me. He urged these considerations — and I 
think forcibly. I say now, as I did the other day on the floor of this House, 



MR. GREELEY EXPLAINS. 311 

I approre of the appropriation for the books, provided tHey are honestly dis- 
posed of according to the intent of the appropriation. 

" Mr. Edwards. Why, then, did you make the denial in the Tribune, and 
say that you voted against if? 

" Mr. Greeley. I did vote against it. I did not vote for it, because I did 
not choose to have some sort of gentlemen on this floor hawk at me. The 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hudson] submitted considerations to me 
of which I admitted the force. I admit them now ; I admit that the House 
was justifiable in voting for this appropriation, for the reason ably stated by 
the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means ; and I think I was 
justifiable, as this Hall will show, in not voting for it. In no particular was 
there collision between what I said on this floor, the editorial, and what I said 
in conversation. The conversation to which the gentleman from Wisconsin 
[Mr. Darling] refers is doubtless the same of which the gentleman from Mas- 
sachusetts [Mr. Hudson] has spoken. 

" Mr. G. having concluded — 

" On motion of Mr. Vinton, the Committee rose and reported the bill to the 
House, with sundry amendments." 

After tlie flurry was over, Mr. Greeley went liome and wrote an 
explanation which appeared a day or two after in the Tribune. It 
began thus : 

" The attack npon me by Dr. Edwards of Ohio to-day, was entire- 
ly unexpected. I had never heard nor suspected that he cherished 
ill-will toward me, or took exception to anything I had said or done. 
I have spoken with him almost daily as a friendly acquaintance, 
and only this morning had a familiar conference with him respect- 
ing his report on the importation of adulterated drugs, which has 
just been presented. I have endeavored through the Tribune to 
do justice to his spirited and most useful labors on that subject. 
Neither in word nor look did he ever intimate that he was offended 
with me — not even this morning. Conceive, then, my astonish- 
ment, when, in Committee of the Whole, after the general appro- 
priation bill had been gone through by items and sections, he rose, 
and moving a sham amendment in order to obtain the floor, sent 
to the clerk's desk to be read, a Tribune containing the substance of 
my remarks on a recent occasion, repelling the charge that I had 
voted for the Congressional books, and that having been read, ho 
proceeded to pronounce it false, and declare that he had three wit 



312 THREE MONTHS* IN CONGRESS.^ 

nesses in the House to prove it. I certainly could not have been 
more surprised had he drawn a pistol and taken aim at me." 
******* 

Jan. 25th. Mr. Greeley (as a member of the Committee on pub- 
lic lands^) reported a bill providing for the reduction of the price 
of lands bordering on Lake Superior. In Committee of the Whole, 
he moved to strike from the army appropriation bill the item of 
$38,000 for the recruiting service, sustaining his amendment by 
an elaborate speech on the recruiting system. Eejected. Mr. Gree- 
ley moved, later in the day, that the mileage of officers be calcu- 
lated by the shortest route. Rejected. The most striking pass- 
age of the speech on the recruiting system was this : 

" Mr. Chairman, of all the iniquities and rascalities committed in our coun- 
try, I think those perpetrated in this business of recruiting are among the 
most flagrant. I doubt whether this government punishes as many frauds in 
all as it incites by maintaining this system of recruiting. I have seen some- 
thing of it, and been by hearsay made acquainted with much more. A sim- 
ple, poor man, somewhat addicted to drinking, awakes from a drunken revel 
in which he has disgraced himself by some outrage, or inflicted some injury, or 
has squandered means essential to the support of his family. He is ashamed 
to enter his home — ashamed to meet the friends who have known him a re- 
spectable and sober man. At this moment of half insanity and utter horror, 
the tempter besets him, portrays the joys of a soldier's life in the most glow- 
ing and seductive colors, and persuades him to enlist. Doubtless men have 
often been made drunk on purpose to delude them into an enlistment ; for there 
is (or lately was) a bounty paid to whoever will bring in an acceptable re- 
cruit to the station. All manner of false inducements are constantly held out 
— absurd hopes of promotion and glory are incited, and, when not in his right 
mind, the dupe is fastened for a term which will probably outlast his life. 
Very soon he repents and begs to be released — his distracted wife pleads — his 
famishing children implore — but all in vain. Shylock must have his bond, 
and the husband and father is torn away from them for years — probably for 
ever. This whole business of recruiting is a systematic robbery of husbands 
from their wives, fathers from their children, and sons from their widowed and 
dependent mothers. It is not possible that a Christian people have any need 
of such a fabric of iniquity, and I call upon this House to unite in decreeing 
its abolition." 

Jan. Zlst. In Committee of the Whole, the naval appropriation 
bill being under consideration, Mr. Greeley offered an amendment 



THE LAST NIGHT OF THE bESSION. 313 

reducing the list of warrant officers. Rejected. He also spoke for 
abolishing the grog system. 

Feb. 1st. Mr. Greeley made a motion to the effect, that no ofB- 
cer of the navy should be promoted, as long as there were oiners 
of the higher rank unemployed. Rejected, 

Feb lUTi. Mr. Greeley submitted the following resolution . 

" Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to inquire 
whether there bo anything in our laws or authoritative Judicial decisions 
which countenances the British doctrine of ' Once a subject always a subject,' 
and to report what action of Congress, if any, be necessary to conform the 
laws and decisions aforesaid, consistently and thoroughly to the American doc- 
trine, affirming the right of every man to migrate from his native land to 
some other, and, in becoming a citizen of the latter, to renounce all allegi- 
ance and responsibility to the former." 

Objected to. The resolution, was therefore, according to the 
rule, withdrawn. 

Feb. 26th. A proposal having been made that the New Mexico 
and Texas Boundary Question be referred to the Supreme Court, 
Mr. Greeley objected, on the ground that the majority of the mem- 
bers of that Court were slaveholders. 

Feb. STth. The Committee to whom had been referred Mr. Gree- 
ley's Land Reform Bill, asked leave to be relieved from the further 
consideration of the subject. Mr. Greeley demanded the yeas and 
nays. Refused. A motion was made to lay the bill on the table, 
which was carried, the yeas and nays being again refused. In the 
debates on the organization of the new territories, Cahfornia, etc., 
Mr. Greeley took a spirited part. 

March 4th. The last night of the session had arrived. It was 
Saturday. The appropriation bills were not yet passed. The bill 
for the organization of the new territories, acquired by the Mexican 
war, had still to be acted upon. It was a night of struggle, tur- 
moil, and violencepthough the interests of future empires were con- 
cerned in its deliberations. A few sentences from Mr. Greeley's own 
Aarrative will give an idea of the scene : 

14 



314 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

*'The House met after recess at six — the seats soon filled, the lobbies and 
galleries densely crowded. 

" M ambers struggled in wild tumult for the floor. 
***** 

" A vehement yell of ' Mr. Speaker !' rose from the scores who jumped on 
the instant for the floor. 

******** 

** Here the effect of the Previous Question was exhausted, and the wild rush 
of half the House for the floor — the universal yell of ' Mr. Speaker !' was re- 
newed. 

******** 

" The House, still intensely excited, proceeded very irregularly to other 
business — mainly because they must await the Senate's action on the Thom- 
son substitute. 

******** 

"At length — after weary watching till five o'clock in the morning, when 
even garrulity had exhausted itself with talking on all manner of frivolous 
pretexts, and relapsed into grateful silence — when profligacy had been satiated 
with rascally votes of the public money in gratuities to almost everybody con- 
nected with Congress, &c., &c.,— word came that the Senate had receded alto- 
gether from its Walker amendment and everything of the sort, agreeing to the 
bill as an Appropriation Bill simply, and killing the House amendment by 
surrendering its own. Close on its heels came the Senate's concurrence in the 
House bill extending the Kevenue Laws to California ; and a message was sent 
with both bills to rouse Mr. Polk (still President by sufferance) from his first 
slumbers at the Irving House (whither he had retired from the Capitol some 
hours before), and procure his signature to the two bills. In due time — though 
it seemed very long now that it was broad daylight and the excitement was 
subsiding — word was returned that the President had signed the bills and had 
nothing further to offer, a message having been sent to the Senate, and the 
House was ready to adjourn ; Mr. Winthrop made an eloquent and affecting 
address on relinquishing the Chair ; and the House, a little before seven 
o'clock in the bright sunshine of this blessed Sunday morning — twice blessed 
after a cloudy week of fog and mist, snow and rain without, and of fierce con- 
tention and angry discord within the Capitol — adjourned sine die. 

" The Senate, I understand, has not yet adjourned, but the latter end of it 
had gathered in a bundle about the Vice-President's chair, and was still pass- 
ing extra gratuities to everybody — and if the bottom is not out of the Treas- 
ury, may be doing so yet for aught I know. Having seen enough of this, I 
did not go over to their chamber, but came wearily away." 

March 5tli. One more glimpse ought to be given at the Houso 



315 

during that last night of the session. Mr. Greeley explains the 
methods, the infamous tricks, by which the ' usual' extra allowance 
to the employes of the House is manoeuvred through. 

" Let me," he wrote, " explain the origin of this ' usual' iniquity. I am 
informed that it commenced at the close of one of the earlier of the Long 
Sessions now unhappily almost biennial. It was then urged, with some plau- 
sibility, that a number (perhaps half) of the sub-oflBcers and employes of the 
House were paid a fixed sum for the session — that, having now been obliged 
to labor an unusually long term, they were justly entitled to additional pay. 
The Treasury was full — the expectants were assiduous and seductive — the 
Members were generous — (it is so easy for most men to be flush with other 
people's money) — and the resolution passed. Next session the precedent was 
pleaded, although the reason for it utterly failed, and the resolution slipped 
through again — I never saw how till last night. Thenceforward the thing 
went easier and easier, until the disease has be«ome chronic, and only to be 
cured by the most determined surgery. 

" Late last night — or rather early this morning — while the House was 
awaiting the final action of the Senate on the Territorial collision — a fresh at- 
tempt was made to get in the ' usual extra allowance' again. Being objected 
to and not in order, a direct attempt was made to suspend the Rules, (I think 
I cannot be mistaken in my recollection,) and defeated — not two-thirds rising 
in its favor, although the free liquor and trimmings provided by the expect- 
ants of the bounty had for hours stood open to all comers in a convenient side- 
room, and a great many had already taken too much. In this dilemma the 
motion was revamped into one to suspend the Rules to admit a resolution to 
fay the Chaplain his usual compensation for the Session's service, and I was 
personally and urgently entreated not to resist this, and thus leave the Chap- 
lain utterly unpaid. I did resist it, however, not believing it true that no pro- 
vision had till this hour been made for paying the Chaplain, and suspecting 
some swindle lay behind it. The appeal was more successful with others, and 
the House suspended its Rules to admit this Chaplain-payinfc resolution, out 
of order. The moment this was done a motion was made to amend the reso- 
luilon by providing another allowance for somebody or other, and upon this 
was piled still another amendment — ' Monsieur Tonson come again' -to pay 
' the usual extra compensation' to the sub-Clerks, Messengers, Pages, etc., etc, 
As soon as this amendment was reached for consideration — in fact as soon as I 
could get the floor to do it — I raised the point of order that it could not be in 
order, when the rules had been suspended for a particular purpose, to let in., 
under cover of that suspension, an entirely different proposition, for which, by 
itself, it was notorious that a suspension could not be obtained. This was 
promptly overruled, the Ayes and Noes on the amendment refused — ditto on 
the Resolution as amended — and the whole crowded through under the Previous 



316 THREE M.ONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

Question in less than no time. Monroe Edwards would have admired the dex- 
terity and celerity of the performance. All that could be obtained was a vote 
by Tellers, and ninety-four voted in favor to twenty-two against — a bare quo- 
rum in all, a great many being then in the Senate — none, I believe, at that 
moment in the ' extra' refectory. But had no such refectory been opened in 
either end of the Capitol, I believe the personal collisions which disgraced the 
Nation through its Representatives would not have occurred. I shall not 
speak further of them — I would not mention them at all if they were not un- 
happily notorious already.' ' 

March 6th. Mr. Greeley was one of the three thousand persons 
who attended the Inauguration ball, which he describes as "a 
sweaty, seething, sweltering jam, a crowd of duped foregatherers 
from all creation." 

" I went," he says, " to see the new President, who had not before come 
within my contracted range of vision, and to mark the reception accorded to 
him by the assembled thousands. I came to gaze on stately heads, not nimble 
feet, and for an hour have been content to gaze on the flitting phantasmagoria 
of senatorial brows and epauletted shoulders — of orators and brunettes, office- 
seekers and beauties. I have had ' something too much of this,' and lo ! ' the 
hour of hours' has come — the buzz of expectation subsides into a murmur of 
satisfaction — the new President is descending the grand stairway which ter- 
minates in the ball-room, and the human mass forms in two deep columns to 
receive him. Between these. General Taylor, supported on either hand, walks 
through the long saloon and back through other like columns, bowing and 
greeting with kind familiarity those on this side and on that, paying especial 
attention to the ladies as is fit, and everywhere welcomed in turn with the most 
cordial good wishes. All wish him well in his new and arduous position, even 
those who struggled hardest to prevent his reaching it. 

" But, as at the Inauguration, there is the least possible enthusiasm. Now 
and then a cheer is attempted, but the result is so nearly a failure that the 
daring leader in the exploit is among the first to laugh at the miscarriage. 
There is not a bit of heart in it. 

" ' They don't seem to cheer with much unction,' I remarked to a Taylor 
original. 

" ' Ne-e-o, they don't cheer much,' he as faintly replied ; 'there is a good 
deal of doubt as to the decorum of cheering at a social ball.' 

" True enough : the possibility of indecorum was sufiicient to check the im- 
pulse to cheer, and very few passed the barrier. The cheers ' stuck in the 
throat,' like Macbeth's Amen, and the proprieties of the occasion were well 
cared for. 

*' But just Imagine Old Hal walking down that staircase, the just inaugu- 



FAREWELL TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 317 

rated President of the United States, into the midst of three thousand of the 
elite of the beauty and chivalry of the Whig party, and think how the rafters 
would have quivered with the universal acclamation. Just think of some one 
stopping to consider whether it might not be indecorous to cheer on such an 
occasion ! "What a solitary hermit that considerer would be ! 

" Let those who will, flatter the chief dispenser of Executive patronage, dis- 
covering in every act and feature some resemblance to Washington — I am 
content to wait, and watch, and hope. I bum no incense on his altar, attach 
no flattering epithets to his name. I turn from this imposing pageant, so rich 
in glitter, so poor in feeling, to think of him who should have been the central 
figure of this grand panorama — the distant, the powerless, the unforgotten — 
' behind the mountains, but not setting' — the eloquent champion of Liberty in 
both hemispheres — whose voice thrilled the hearts of the uprising, the long- 
trampled sons of Leonidas and Xenophon — whose appeals for South American 
independence were read to the hostilely mustered squadrons of Bolivar, and 
nerved them to sweep from this fair continent the myrmidons of Spanish op- 
pression. My heart is with him in his far southern abiding-place — with him, 
the early advocate of African Emancipation, the life-long champion of a diver- 
sified Home Industry ; of Internal Improvement ; and not less glorious in 
his later years as the stern reprover of the fatal spirit of conquest and aggress- 
ion. Let the exulting thousands quaflf their red wines at the revel to the vic- 
tor of Monterey and Buena Vista, while wit points the sentiment with an 
epigram, and beauty crowns it with her smiles : more grateful to me the still- 
ness of my lonely chamber, this cup of crystal water in which I honor the 
cherished memory with the old, familiar aspiration — 

' Here 's to you, Harry Clay ! ' " 

March 9t7i. Mr. Greeley has returned to New York. To-day he 
took leave of liis constituents in a long letter published in the Tri- 
bune, in which he reviewed the proceedings of the late session, 
characterized it as a Failure, and declined to take to himself any 
part of the blame thereof. These were his concluding words : 

"My work as your servant is done — whether well or ill it remains for you 
to judge. Very likely I gave the wrong vote on some of the difficult and 
complicated questions to which I was called to respond Ay or No with hardly 
a moment's warning. If so, you can detect and condemn the error ; for my 
name stands recorded in the divisions by Yeas and Nays on every public 
and all but one private bill, (which was laid on the table the moment the 
sitting opened, and on which my name had just been passed as I entered the 
Hall.) I wish it were the usage among us to publish less of speeches and 



318 THREE MONTHS IN CONGRESS. 

more of propositions and votes thereupon — it would give tlie mass of the peo- 
ple a much clearer insight into the management of their public affairs My 
successor being already chosen and commissioned, I shall hardly be suspected 
of seeking your further kindness, and I shall be heartily rejoiced if he 
shall be able to combine equal zeal in your service with greater efficiency — 
equal fearlessness with greater popularity. That I have been somewhat 
annoyed at times by some of the consequences of my Mileage Expose is 
true, but I have never wished to recall it, nor have I felt that I owed an 
apology to any, and I am quite confident, that if you had sent to Washington 
(as you doubtless might have done) a more sternly honest and fearless Rep- 
resentative, he would have made himself more unpopular with a large por- 
tion of the House than I did. I thank you heartily for the glimpse of public 
life which your favor has afforded me, and hope to render it useful hence- 
forth not to myself only but to the public. In ceasing to be your agent, and 
returning with renewed zest to my private cares and duties, I have a single 
additional favor to ask, not of you especially, but of all ; and I am sure my 
friends at least will grant it without hesitation. It is that you and they will 
oblige me henceforth by remembering that my name is simply 

" Horace Greeley." 

And thus ended Horace Greeley's three months in Congress. No 
man ever served his country more faithfully. No man ever received 
less reward. One would liave supposed, that such a manly and 
brave endeavor to economize the public money and the public time, 
such singular devotion to the public interests in the face of opposi- 
tion, obloquy, insult, would have elicited from the whole country, 
or at least from many parts of it, cordial expressions of approval. 
It did not, however. With no applauding shouts was Horace 
Greeley welcomed on his return from the Seat of Corruption. JSTo 
enthusiastic mass-meetings of his constituents passed a series of 
resolutions, approving his course. He has not been named for re- 
election. Do the people, then, generally feel that an Honest Man 
is out of place in the Congress of the United States ? 

Only from the little town of North Fairfield, Ohio, came a hearty 
cry of "Well Done ! A meeting of the citizens of that place was 
held for the purpose of expressing their sense of his gallant and 
honorable conduct. He responded to their applauding resolutions 
in a characteristic letter. "Let me beg of you," said he, "to think 
little of Persons^ in this connection, and much of Measures. Should 
any see fit to tell you that I am dishonest, or ambitious, or hollow- 



ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 319 

hearted in this matter, don't stop to contradict or confute him, but 
press on his attention the main question respecting the honesty of 
tliese crooked charges. It is with these the pubHc is concerned, 
and not this or that man's motives. Calhng me a hypocrite or 
demagogue cannot make a charge of $1,664 for coming to Congress 
from Illinois and going back again an honest one." 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

ASSOCIATION IN THE TEIBUNE OFFICE. 

Accessions to the corps— The course of the Tribune— Horace Greeley iu Ohio— The 
Rochester knockings— The mediums at Mr. Greeley's house— Jenny Lind goes to 
see them— Her behavior— Woman's Rights Convention— The Tribvme Association 
— The hireling system. 

But the Tribune held on its strong, triumphant way. Circula- 
tion, ever on the increase ; advertisements, from twenty to twenty- 
six columns daily ; supplements, three, four, and five times a week ; 
price increased to a shilling a week without loss of subscribers ; 
Europeon reputation extending; correspondence more and more 
able and various ; editorials more and more elaborate and telling ; 
new ink infused into the Tribune's swelling veins. What with the 
supplements and the thickness of the paper, the volumes of 1849 
and 1850 are of dimensions most huge. We must look through 
them, notwithstanding, turning over the broad black leaves swiftly, 
pausing seldom, lingering never. ' 

The letter. R. attached to the literary notices apprises us that 
early in 1849, Mr. George Ripley began to lend the Tribune the 
aid of his various learning and considerate pen. Bayard Taylor, re- 
turned from viewing Europe a-foot, is now one of the Tribune 
corps, and this year he goes to California, and ' opens up ' the land 
of gold to tlie view of all the world, by writing a series of letters, 
graphic and glowing. Mr. Dana comes home and resumes his place 
in the office as manager-general and second-in-command. During 



320 ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

the disgraceful period of Ke-action, William Henry Fry, now the 
Tribune's sledge-hammer, and the country's sham-demolish er, then 
an American in Paris, sent across the Atlantic to the Tribune many 
a letter of savage protest. Mi-. G. G. Foster served up Kew York 
in savory 'slices' and dainty 'items.' Horace Greeley confined 
himself less to the office than before ; but whether he went on a 
tour of observation, or of lecturing, or of political agitation, he 
brought all he saw, heard and thought, to bear in enhancing the in- 
terest and value of his paper. 

In 1849, the Tribune, true to its instinct of giving hospitality to 
every new or revived idea, afforded Proudhon a full hearing in re- 
views, essays and biography. His maxim, Peopeett is Robbeey, a 
maxim felt to be true, and acted upon by the early Christians who 
had all things in common, furnished a superior text to the conserva- 
tive papers and pulpits. As usual, the Tribune was accused of utter- 
ing those benign words, not of publishing them merely. On the oc- 
casion of the Astor-Place riot, the Tribune supported the authorities, 
and wrote much for law and order. In the Hungarian war, the ed- 
itors of the Tribune took an intense interest, and Mr. Greeley tried 
hard to condense some of the prevalent enthusiasm into substantial 
help for the cause. He thought that embroidered flags and parch- 
ment addresses were not exactly the commodities of which Kossuth 
stood most in need, and he proposed the raising of a patriotic loan 
for Hungary, in shares of a hundred dollars each. " Let each vil- 
lage, each rural town, each club, make up by collections or other- 
wise, enough to take one share of scrip, and so up to as many 
as possible ; let our men of wealth and income be personally solic- 
ited to invest generously, and let us resolve at least to raise one 
million dollars off-hand. Another milKon will come much easier 
alter the first." But alas ! soon came the news of the catastrophe. 
For a reformed code, the Tribune contended powerfully during the 
whole time of the agitation of that subject. It welcomed Father 
Matthew this year — fought Bishop Hughes — discussed slavery — be- 
wailed the fall of Rome — denounced Louis Napoleon — had Consul 
Walsh, the American apologist of despotism, recalled from Paris — 
helped Mrs. Peabody finish Bowen of the North American Review 
— explained to workmen the advantages of association in labor — 
assisted "Watson G. Haynes in his crusade against flogging in the 



THE ROCHESTER KNOCKINGS. 3*21 

navy — went dead against tlie divorce theories of Henry James and 
others — and did -whatsoever else seemed good in its own eyes. 
Among other things, it did this : Horace Greeley heing accused 
by the Evening Post of a corrupt compliancy with the slave inter- 
est, the Tribune began its reply with these words : 

"You lie, villain 1 wilfully, wickedly, basely lie !" 

This observation called forth much remark at the time. 

Thrice the editor of the Tribune visited the Great "West this year, 
and he received many private assurances, though, I believe, no pub- 
lic ones, that his course in Congress was approved by the Great 
"West. In Cincinnati he received marked attention, which he grace- 
fully acknowledged in a letter, published May 21st, 1849 : — " I can 
hardly close this letter without acknowledging the many acts of 
personal generosity, the uniform and positive kindness, with which 
I was treated by the citizens of the stately Queen of the West. I 
would not so far misconstrue and outrage these hospitalities as to 
drag the names of those who tendered them before the public gaze; 
but I may express in these general terms my regret that time was 
not afforded me to testify more expressly my appreciation of regards 
which could not fail to gratify, even while they embarrassed one so 
unfitted for and unambitious of personal attentions. In these, the 
disappointment caused by the failure of our expected National Tem- 
perance Jubilee was quickly forgotten, and only the stern demands 
of an exacting vocation impelled me to leave so soon a city at once 
so munificent and so interesting, the majestic outpost of Free Labor 
and Free Institutions, in whose every street the sound of the build- 
er's hammer and trowel speaks so audibly of a growth and great- 
ness hardly yet begun. Kind friends of Cincinnati and of Southern 
Ohio ! I wave you a grateful farewell !" 

In December appeared the first account of the ' Rochester Knock- 
ings' in the Tribune, in the form of a letter from that most practical 
of cities. The letter was received and published quite in the ordi- 
nary course of business, and without the slightest suspicion on the 
part of the editors, that they were doing an act of historical impori- 
ance. On the contrary, they were disposed to laugh at the myste- 
rious narrative ; and, a few days after its publication, in reply to an 
anxious correspondent, the paper held the following language: — 
" For ourselves, we really cannot see that these singular revelations 

14* 



822 ASSOCIATIOX IN THE TRiBUNE OFFICE. 

and experiences have, so far, amounted to much. We have yet to 
hear of a clairvoyant whose statements concerning facts were relia- 
ble, or whose facts were any better than any other person's, or who 
could discourse rationally without mixing in a proportion of non- 
sense. And as for these spirits in "Western New York or elsewhere, 
it strikes us they might be better engaged than in going about to 
give from one to three knocks on the floor in response to success- - 
ive letters of the alphabet ; and we are confident that ghosts who 
had anything to communicate worth listening to, would hardly 
stoop to so uninteresting a business as hammering." 

Nor has the Tribune, since, contained one editorial word intimat- 
ing a belief in the spiritual origin of the ' manifestations.' The sub- 
ject, however, attracted much attention, and, when the Kochester 
' mediums' came to the city, Horace Greeley, in the hope of eluci- 
dating the mystery, invited them to reside at his house, which they 
did for several weeks. He did not discover, nor has any one dis- 
covered, the cause of the singular phenomena, but he very soon ar- 
rived at the conclusion, that, whatever their cause might be, they 
could be of no practical utility, could throw no light on the tortu- 
ous and difficult path of human life, nor cast any trustworthy 
gleams into the future. During the stay of the mediums at his 
house, they were visited by a host of distinguished persons, and, 
among others, by Jenny Lind, whose behavior on the occasion was 
not exactly what the devotees of that vocalist would expect. 

At the request of her manager, Mr. Greeley called upon the 
Nightingale at the Union Hotel, and, in the course of his visit, fell 
into conversation with gentlemen present on the topic of the day, 
the Spiritual Manifestations. The Swede approached, listened to 
the conversation with greedy ears, and expressed a desire to witness 
some of the marvels which she heard described. Mr. Greeley invited 
her to his house, and the following Sunday morning was appointed 
for the visit. She came, and a crowd came with her, filling up the 
narrow parlor of the house, and rendering anything in the way of 
calm investigation impossible. Mr. Greeley said as much ; but the 
' mediums' entered, and the rappings struck up with vigor, Jenny 
sitting on one side of the table and Mr. Greeley on the other. 

" Take your hands from under the table," said she to the master 
of the house, with the air of a new duchess. 



328 

It was as thongh she had said, ' I did n't oorae here to be hum- 
bugged, Mr. Pale Face, and you 'd better not try it.' The insulted 
gentleman raised his hands into the air, and did not request her to 
leave the house, nor manifest in any other way his evidently acute 
sense of her impertinent conduct. As long as we worship a woman 
on account of a slight pecuharity in the formation of part of her 
throat, the woman so worshiped will give herself airs. The blame 
is ours, not hers. The rapping continued, and the party retired, 
after some hours, sufficiently puzzled, but apparently convinced that 
there was no collusion between the table and the 'mediums.' 

Tlie subsequent history of the spiritual movement is well known. 
It has caused much pain, and harm, and loss. But, like every other 
Event, its good results, realized and prospective, are greater far 
than its evil. It has awakened some from the insanity of indiffer- 
ence, to the insanity of an exclusive devotion to things spiritual. 
But many spiritualists have stopped short of the latter insanity, and 
are' better men, in every respect, than they were — better, happier, 
and more hopeful. It has delivered many from the degrading fear 
of death and the future, a fear more prevalent, perhaps, than is 
supposed ; for men are naturally and justly ashamed of their fears, 
and do not willingly tell them. Spiritualism, moreover, may be 
among the means by which the way is to be prepared for that gen- 
eral, that earnest, that fearless consideration of our religious sys- 
tems to which they will, one day, be subjected, and from which the 
truth in them has nothing to fear, but how much to hope ! 

It was about the same time that the Tribune rendered another 
service to the country, by publishing a fair and full report of the 
first "Woman's Convention, accompanying the report with respectful 
and favorable remarks. "It is easy," said the Tribune, "to be 
smart, to be droll, to be facetious, in opposition to the demands of 
these Eemale Reformers; and, in decrying assumptions so novel 
and opposed to established habits and usages, a little wit will go a 
great way. But when a sincere republican is asked to say in sober 
earnest what adequate reason ho can give for refusing the demand 
of women to an equal participation with men in political rights, ha 
must answer, None at all. True, he may say that he believes it 
unwise in them to make the demand — he may say the great major- 
ity desire no such thing ; that they prefer to devote their time to 



324 ASSOCIATION IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

the discharge of home duties and the enjoyment of home delights, 
leaving the functions of legislators, sheriffs, jurymen, militia, to 
their fathers, husbands, brothers ; yet if, after all, the question :fecurs, 
' J^ut suppose the women should generally prefer a complete political 
equality with men, what would you say to that demand V — the an- 
swer must he, ' I accede to it. However unwise or mistaken the 
demand, it is but the assertion of a natural right, and as such must 
be conceded.' " 

The report of this convention excited much discussion and more 
ridicule. The ridicule has died away, but the discussion of the subject 
of woman's rights and wrongs will probably continue until every 
statute which does wrong to woman is expunged from the laws. 
And if, before voting goes out of fashion, the ladies should gener- 
ally desire the happiness, such as it is, of taking part in elections, 
doubtless that happiness will be conceded them also. 

Meanwhile, an important movement was going on in the office of 
the Tribune. Since the time when Mr. Greeley practically gave up 
Fourierism, he had taken a deep interest in the subject of Associa- 
ted Labor, and in 1848, 1849, and 1850, the Tribune published 
countless articles, showing workingmen how to become their own 
employers, and share among themselves the profits of their work, 
instead of letting them go to swell the gains of a 'Boss.' It was 
but natural that workingmen should reply, as they often did, — 'If 
Association is the right principle on which to conduct business, if it 
is best, safest, and most just to all concerned, why not try it your- 
self, O Tribune of the People!' That was precisely what the Tri- 
bune of the People had long meditated, and, in the year 1849, he 
and his partner resolved to make the experiment. They were both, 
at the time, in the enjoyment of incomes superfluously large, and 
the contemplated change in their business was, therefore, not in- 
duced by any business exigency. It was the result of a pure, dis- 
interested attachment to principle ; a desire to add practice to 
preaching. 

The establishment was valued by competent judges at a hundred 
thousand dollars, a low valuation ; for its annual profits amounted 
to more than thirty thousand dollars. But newspaper property 
differs from all other. It is won with difficulty, but it is precarious. 
An unlucky paragraph may depreciate it one-half; a perverse edi- 



THE TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION. 325 

cor, destroy it altogether. It is tangible, and yet intangille. It is 
a body and it is a soul. Horace Greeley might have said, The Tri- 
lune—it is /, with more truth than the French Kmg could boast, 
when he made a similar remark touching himself and the State. 
And Mr. McElrath, glancing round at the types, the subscription 
books, the iron chest, the mighty heaps of paper, and listening to 
the thunder of the press in the vaults below, might have been par- 
doned if he had said, The Tribune — these are the Tribune. 

The property was divided into a hundred shares of a thousand 
dollars each, and a few of them were offered for sale to the leading 
men in each department, the foremen of the composing and press- 
rooms, the chief clerks and bookkeepers, the most prominent edi- 
tors. In all, about twelve shares were thus disposed of, each of the 
original partners selling six. In some cases, the purchasers paid 
only a part of the price in cash, and were allowed to pay the re- 
mainder out of the income of their share. Each share entitled its 
possessor to one vote in the decisions of the company. In the 
course of time, further sales of shares took place, until the original 
proprietors were owners of not more than two-thirds of the con- 
cern. Practically, the power, the controlling voice, belonged still 
to Messrs. Greeley and McElrath ; but the dignity and advantage 
of owjSTEeship were conferred on all those who exercised authority 
in the several departments. And this was the great good of the 
new system. 

That there is something in being a hired servant which is natur- 
ally and deeply abhorrent to men is shown by the intense desire 
that every hireling manifests to escape from that condition. Many 
are the ties by which man has been bound in industry to his fellow 
man ; but, of them all, that seems to be one of the most unfraternal, 
unsafe, unfair, and demorahzing. The slave, degraded and defraud- 
ed as he is, is safe ; the hirehng holds his life at the caprice of 
another man ; for, says Shylock, he takes my life who takes from 
me my means of living. "How is business?" said one employer to 
another, a few days ago. "Doll," was the reply. "I hold on 
merely to keep the hands in work." Think of that. Merely to 
keep the hands in work. Merely I As if there could be a better 
reason for ' holding on ;' as if all other reasons combined were not 
infinitely inferior in weiglit to this one of keeping men in work ; 



326 ON THE PLiWrFORM. 

keeping men in heart, keeping men in happinesp, keeping men m 
use! But universal liirelingism is quite inevitable at present, wliea 
the governments and institutions most admired may be defined as 
Organized Distrusts. "When we are better, and truer, and wiser, we 
shall labor together on very different te?ms than are known to "Way- 
land's Political Economy. Till then, we must live in pitiful estrange- 
ment from one another, and strive in sorry competition for 
triumphs which bless not when they are gained. 

The experiment of association in the office of the Tribune, has, 
to all appearance, worked well. The paper has improved steadily 
and rapidly. It has lost none of its independence, none of its viva- 
city, and has gained in weight, wisdom, and influence. A vast 
amount of work of various kinds is done in the office, but it is done 
harmoniously and easily. And of all the proprietors, there is not 
one, whether he be editor, printer, or clerk, who does not live in a 
more stylish house, fare more sumptuously, and dress more expen- 
sively, than the Editor in Chief. The experiment, however, is in- 
complete. Nine-tenths of those who assist in the work of the Tri- 
bune are connected with it solely by the tie of wages, which change 
not, whether the profits of the establishment fall to zero or rise to 
the highest notch upon the scale. 

More of association in the next chapter, where our hero appears, 
for the first time, in the character of author. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

ON THE P L ATFORM. 

HINTS TOWARDS REFORMS. 

The Lecture System— Comparative popularity of the leading Lecturers— Horace Gree- 
ley at the Tabernacle — His audience— His appearance— His manner of speaking— 
EHs occasional addresses— The 'Hints' published— Its one subject, the Emancipa- 
tion of Labor— The Problems of the Time— The 'successful' man— Tlie duty of the 
State— The educated class— A narrative for workingmen— The cataslrophe. 

Lectueing, of late years, has become, in this country, what is 
facetiously termed ' an institution.' And whether we regard it as a 



THE LECTURE SYSTEM, 327 

means of public instruction, or as a means of making money, we 
cannot deny that it is an institution of great importance. 

" The bubble reputation," said Shakspeare. Eeputation is a bub- 
ble no longer. Eeputation, it has been discovered, will ' draw.^ 
Eeputation alone will draw ! That airy nothing is, through the in- 
strumentality of the new institution, convertible into solid cash, into 
a large pile of solid cash. Small fortunes have been made by it in 
a single winter, by a single lecture or course of lectures. Thack- 
eray, by much toil and continuous production, attained an income 
of seven thousand dollars a year. He crosses the Atlantic, and, in 
one short season, without producing a line, gains thirteen thousand, 
and could have gained twice as much if he had been half as much 
a man of business as he is a man of genius. Ik Marvel writes a 
book or two which brings him great praise and some cash. Then 
he writes one lecture, and not a very good one either, and trans- 
mutes a little of his glory into plenty of money, with which ho 
buys leisure to produce a work worthy of his powers. Bayard Tay- 
lor roams over a great part of the habitable and uninhabitable globe. 
He writes letters to the Tribune, very long, very fatiguing to write 
on a journey, and not saleable at a high price. He comes home, 
and sighs, perchance, that there are no more lands to visit. " Lec- 
ture!" suggests the Tribune, and he lectures. He carries two or 
three manuscripts in his carpet-bag, equal to half a dozen of his 
Tribune letters in bulk. He ranges the country, far and wide, and 
brings back money enough to carry him ten times round the world. 
It was his reputation that did the business. He earned that money 
by years of adventure and endurance in strange and exceedingly 
hot countries ; he gathered up his earnings in three months — earn- 
ings which, but for the invention of lecturing, he would never have 
touched a dollar of. Park Benjamin, if he sold his satirical poems 
to Putnam's Magazine, would get less than hod-carriers' wages ; 
but, selling them directly to the public, at so much a . hear^ they 
bring him in, by the time he has supplied all his customers, five 
thousand dollars apiece. Lecturing has been commended as an an- 
tidote to the alleged •docility' of the press, and the alleged dullness 
of the pulpit. It may be. / praise it because it enables the man of 
letters to get partial payment from the public for tho incalculable 
services which he renders the public. 



3^8 ON THE PL*rFORM. 

Lectures are important, tou, as the means' bywhicli the public 
are brought into actual contact and acquaintance Tvith the famous 
men of the country. What a delight it is to see the men whose 
writings have charmed, and moved, and formed us ! And there is 
something in the presence of a man, in the living voice, in the eye, 
the face, the gesture, that gives to thought and feeling an express- 
ion far more effective than the pen, unassisted by these, can ever at- 
tain. Horace Greeley is aware of this, and he seldom omits an 
opportunity of bringing the influence of his presence to bear in in- 
culcating the doctrines to which he is attached. He has been for. 
many years in the habit of writing one or two lectures in the 
course of the season, and delivering them as occasion offered. No 
man, not a professional lecturer, appears oftener on the platform 
than he. In the winter of 1853-4, he lectured, on an average, twice 
a week., He has this advantage over the professional lecturer. 
The professional lecturer stands before the public in the same posi- 
tion as an editor ; that is, he is subject to the same necessity to make 
the banquet palatable to those who pay for it, and who will not 
come again if they do not like it. But the man whose position is 
already secure, to whom lecturing is only a subsidiary employment, 
is free to utter the most unpopular truths. 

A statement published last winter, of the proceeds of a course of 
lectures delivered before the Young Men's Association of Chicago, af- 
fords a test, though an imperfect one, of the popularity of some of our 
lecturers. E. P. Whipple, again to borrow the language of the thea- 
tre, ' drew' seventy-nine dollars ; Horace Mann, ninety-five ; Geo. W. 
Curtis, eighty-seven ; Dr. Lord, thirty-three ; Horace Greeley, one 
hundred and ninety-three; Theodore Parker, one hundred and 
twelve ; W. H. Ohanning, thirty-three ; Ralph Waldo Emerson, (did it 
rain ?) thirty-seven ; Bishop Potter, forty-five ; John G. Saxe, one hun- 
dred and thirty-five ; W. H. C. Hosmer, twenty-six ; Bayard Tay- 
lor (lucky fellow !) two hundred and fifty-two. 

In large cities,- the lecturer has to contend with rival attractions, 
theatre, concert, and opera. His performance is subject to a com- 
parison with the sermons of distinguished clergymen, of which some 
are of a quality that no lecture surpasses. To know the import- 
ance of the popular lecturer, one must reside in -a country town 
the even tenor of whose way is seldom broken by an event of com- 



THE TABERNACLE. 329 

manding interest. The arrival of the great man is expected with 
eagerness. A committee of the village magnates meet him at the 
cars and escort him to his lodging. There has been contention who 
should be his entertainer, and the owner of the best house has car- 
ried off the prize. He is introduced to half the adult population. 
There is a buzz and an agitation throughout the town. There is 
talk of the distinguished visitor at all the tea-tables, in the stores, 
and across the palings of garden-fences. The largest church is gen- 
erally the scene of his triumph, and it is a triumph. The words of 
the -stranger are listened to with attentive admiration, and the im- 
pression they make is not obliterated by the recurrence of a new 
excitement on the morrow. 

Not so in the city, the hurrying, tumultuous city, where the re- 
appearance of Solomon in all his glory, preceded by Dod worth's 
band, would serve as the leading feature of the newspapers for one 
day, give occasion for a, few depreciatory articles on the next, and 
be swept from remembrance by a new astonishment on the third. 
Yet, as we are here, let us go to the Tabernacle and hear Horace 
Greeley lecture. 

The Tabernacle, otherwise called ' The Cave,' is a church which 
looks as little like an ecclesiastical edifice as can be imagined. It 
is a large, circular building, with a floor slanting towards the plat- 
form — pulpit it has none — and galleries that rise, rank above rank, 
nearly to the ceiling, which is supported by six thick, smooth col- 
umns, that stand round what has been impiously styled the 'pit,' 
like giant spectators of a pigmy show. The platform is so placed, 
that the speaker stands not far from the centre of the building, 
where he seems engulfed in a sea of audience, that swells and 
surges all around and far above him. A better place for an orator- 
ical display the city does not afford. It received its cavernous nick- 
name, merely in derision of the economical expenditure of gas that 
its proprietors venture upon when they let the building for an 
evening entertainment ; and the dismal hue of the walls and col- 
umns gives further propriety to the epithet. The Tabernacle will 
contain an audience of three thousand persons. At present, there 
are not more than six speakers and speakeresses in the United 
States who can ' draw ' it full ; and of these, Horace Greeley is not 



330 ON THE PLAfrORM. 

one. His number is about twelve hundred. Let us suppose it half- 
past seven, and the twelve hundred arrived. 

The audience, we observe, has decidedly the air of a country au- 
dience. Fine ladies and fine gentlemen there are none. Of farmers 
who look as if they took the Weekly Tribune and are in town to- 
night by accident, there are hundreds. City mechanics are present 
in considerable numbers. An ardent-looking young man, with a 
spacious forehead and a turn-over shirt-collar, may be seen here and 
there. A few ladies in Bloomer costume of surpassing ugliness— 
the costume, not the ladies — come down the steep aisles now and 
then, with a well-preserved air of unconsciousness. In tliat assem- 
bly no one laughs at them. The audience is sturdy, sohd-looking, 
appreciative and opinionative, ready for broad views and broad 
humor, and hard hits. Every third man is reading a newspaper, 
for they are men of progress, and must make haste to keep up with 
the times, and the times are fast. Men are going about offering 
books for sale — perhaps Uncle Tom, perhaps a treatise on Water 
Cure, and perhaps Horace Greeley's Hints toward Reforms ; but 
certainly something which belongs to the Nineteenth Century. A 
good many free and independent citizens keep their hats on, and 
some 'speak right out in meeting,' as they converse with their 
neighbors. 

But the lecturer enters at the little door under the gallery on the 
right, and when the applause apprizes us of the fact, we catch a 
glimpse of his bald head and sweet face as he wags his hasty way 
to the platform, escorted by a few special adherents of the " Cause" 
he is about to advocate. The newspapers, the hats, the conversa- 
tion, the book-selling are discontinued, and silent attention is the 
order of the night. Peoi)le with ' causes' at their hearts are full of 
business, and on such occasions there are always some preliminary 
vinnouncements to be made — of lectures to come, of meetings to be 
held, of articles to appear, of days to celebrate, of subscriptions to 
be undertaken. These over, the lecturer rises, takes his place at 
the desk, and, while the applause, which never fails on any public 
occasion to greet this man, continues, he opens his lecture, puts on 
his spectacles, and then, looking up at the audience with an express- 
ion of inquiring benignity, waits to begin. 
Generally, Mr. Greeley's attire is in a condition of the most hope- 



HIS MANNER OF SPEAKING. 331 

less, and, as it were, elaborate disorder. It would be applauded oa 
the stap-e as an excellent ' make-up.' His dress, it is true, is never 
unclean, and seldom unsound ; but he usually presents the appear- 
ance of a man who has been traveling, night and day, for six weeks 
in a stage-coach, stopping long enough for an occasional hasty ablu- 
tion, and a hurried throwing on of clean hnen. It must be admit- 
ted, however, that when he is going to deliver a set lecture to a city 
audience his apparel does bear marks of an attempted adjustment. 
But it is the attempt of a man who does something to which he is 
unaccustomed, and the result is sometimes more surprising than the 
neglect. On the present occasion, the lecturer, as he stands there 
waiting for the noise to subside, has the air of a farmer, not in his 
Sunday clothes, but in that intermediate rig, once his Sunday suit, 
in which he attends " the meeting of the trustees," announced last 
Sunday at church, and which he dons to attend court when a 
cause is coming on that he is interested in. A most respect- 
able man ; but the tie of his neckerchief was executed in a fit of 
abstraction, without the aid of a looking-glass ; perhaps in the dark, 
w^hen he dressed himself this morning before daj-Ught — to adopt 
his own emphasis. 

Silence is restored, and the lecture begins. The voice of the 
speaker is more like a woman's than a man's, high-pitched, small, 
soft, but heard with ease in the remotest part of the Tabernacle. 
His first words are apologetic ; they are uttered in a deprecatory, 
slightly-beseeching tone; and their substance is, 'You must n't, ray 
friends, expect fine words from a rough, busy man Hke me ; yet such 
observations as I have been able hastily to note down, I will now 
submit, though wishing an abler man stood at this moment in my 
shoes.' He proceeds to read his discourse in a plain, utterly unam- 
bitious, somewhaf too rapid manner, pushing on through any mod- 
erate degree of applause without waiting. If there is a man in the 
world who is more un-oratorical than any other — and of course 
there is such a man — and if that man be not Horace Greeley, I know 
not where he is to be found. A plain man reading plain sense to 
plain^ men ; a practical man stating quietly to practical men the 
results of his thought and observation, stating what he entirely be 
lieves, what he wants the world to believe, what he knows will not 
be generally believed in his time, what he is quite sure will one day 



332 ON THE PLATFORM. 

be universally believed, and what he is perfectly patient with the 
world for not believing yet. There is no gesticulation, no increased 
animation at important passages, no glow got up for the closing 
paragraphs ; no aiming at any sort of effect whatever ; no warmth 
of personal feeling against opponents. There is a shrewd humor in 
the man, however, and his hits excite occasional bursts of laughter ; 
but there is no bitterness in his humor, not the faintest approach to 
it. An impressive or pathetic passage now and then, which loses 
none of its effect from the simple, plaintive way in which it is 
uttered, deepens the silence which prevails in the hall, at the end 
eliciting warm and general applause, which the speaker 'improves' 
by drinking a little water. The attention of the audience never 
flags, and the lecture concludes amid the usual tokens of decided 
approbation. 

Horace Greeley is, indeed, no orator. Yet some who value 
oratory less than any other kind of bodily labor, and whom the 
tricks of elocution offend, except when they are performed on the 
stage, and even there they should be concealed, have expressed 
the opinion that Mr. Greeley is, strictly speaking, one of the lest 
speakers this metropolis can boast. A man, they say, never does 
a weaker, an unworthier, a more self-demoralizing thing than when 
he speaks for effect ; and of this vice Horace is less guilty than any 
speaker we are in the habit of hearing, except Ralph Waldo 
Emerson. Not that he does not make exaggerated statements ; not 
that he does not utter sentiments which are only half true ; not 
that he does not sometimes indulge in language which, when read^ 
savor of the high-flown. "What I mean is, that his public speeches 
are literally transcripts of the mind whence they emanate. 

At public meetings and public dinners Mr. Greeley is a frequent 
speaker. His name usually comes at the end of the report, intro-; 
duced with " Horace Greeley being loudly called for, made a few 
remarks to the following purport." The call is never declined; 
nor does he ever speak without saying something; and when ho 
has said it he resumes his seat. He has a way, particularly of late 
years, of coming to a meeting when it is nearly over, delivering one 
of his short, enlightening addresses, and then embracing the first 
opportunity that offers of taking an unobserved departure. 

A few words with regard to the subjects upon which Horace 



333 

Greeley most loves to discourse. In 1850, a volume, containing 
ten of liis lectures and twenty shorter essays, appeared from the 
press of the Messrs. Harpers, under the title of "Hints towards 
Keforms." It has had a sale of 2,000 copies. Two or three other 
lectures have been published in pamphlet form, of which the one 
entitled "What the Sister Arts-teach as to Farming," delivered be- 
fore the Indiana State Agricultural Society, at its annual fair at 
Lafayette in October, 1853, is perhaps the best that Mr. Greeley 
has written. But let us glance for a moment at the ' Hints.' The 
title-page contains three quotations or mottoes, appropriate to the 
book, and characteristic of the author. They are these : 

" Hasten the day, just Heaven ! 
Accomplish thy design, 
And let the blessings Thou hast freely given 

Freely on all men shine ; 
Till Equal E,ights be equally enjoyed. 
And human power for human good employed ; 
Till Law, and not the Sovereign, rule sustain, 
And Peace and Virtue undisputed reign. " HeneyWare." 

" Listen not to the everlasting Conservative, who pines and whines at 
every attempt to drive him from the spot where he has so lazily cast his an- 
chor. . . . Every abuse must be abolished. The whole system must be 
settled on the right basis. Settle it ten times and settle it wrong, you will 
have the work to begin again. Be satisfied with nothing but the complete 
snfranchisement of Humanity, and the restoration of man to the image of 
His God. " Henry Ward Beecher." 

Once the welcome Light has broken, 

Who shall say 
What the unimagined glories 

Of the day 7 
What the evil that shall perish 

In its ray 7 
Aid the dawning, Tongue and Pen ! 
Aid it, hopes of honest men ! 
Aid it. Paper ! aid it. Type ! 
Aid it, for the hour is ripe ! 
And our earnest must not slacken 

Into play : 
Men of Thought, and Men of Action, 

Clear the way ! " Charles Maokay."' 



334 ON THE PLATFORM. 

The dedication is no less characteristic. I copy that also, as 
throwing light upon the aim and manner of tie man: 

" To the generous, the hopeful, the loving, who, firmly and joyfully believ- 
ing in the impartial and boundless goodness of our Father, trust, that the 
errors, the crimes, and the miseries, which have long rendered earth a hell, 
shall yet be swallowed up and forgotten, in a far exceeding and unmeasured 
reign of truth, purity, and bliss, this volume is respectfully and affectionately 
inscribed by " The Author." 

Earth is not ' a hell.' The expression appears very harsh and 
very unjust. Earth is not a hell. Its sum of happiness is infinitely 
greater than its sum of misery. It contains scarcely one creature 
that does not, in the course of its existence, enjoy more than it 
suffers, that does not do a greater number of right acts thau 
wrorg. Yet the world as it ?s, compared with the world as a 
benevolent hear^ wishes it to be, is hell-like enough ; so we may, in 
this sense, but in this sense alone, accept the language of the dedi- 
cation. 

The preface informs us, that the lectures were prompted by invi- 
tations to address Popular Lyceums and Young Men's Associations, 
' generally those of the humbler class,^ existing in country villages 
and rural townships. " They were written," says the author, "in 
the years from 1842 to 1848, inclusive, each in haste, to fulfil some 
engagement already made, for which preparation had been delayed, 
under the pressure of seeming necessities, to the latest moment 
allowable. A calling whose exactions are seldom intermitted for a 
day, never for a longer period, and whose requirements, already ex- 
cessive, seem perpetually to expand and increase, may well excuse 
the distraction of thought and rapidity of composition which it 
renders inevitable. At no time has it seemed practicable to devote 
a whole day, seldom a full half day, to the production of any of 
the essays. Not until months after the last of them was written 
did the idea of collecting and printing them in this shape suggest 
itself, and a hurried perusal is all that has since been given 
them." 

The eleven published lectures of ITorace Greeley which lie before 
me, are variously entitled; but their subject is one; his subject is 
ever the same ; the object of his public life is single. It is the 



THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR. 335 

'Emancipation of Laboe;' its emancipation from ignorance, vice, 
servitude, insecurity, poverty. Tliis is Lis chosen, only theme, 
whether lie speaks from the platform, or writes for the Tribune. If 
slavery is the subject of discourse, the Dishonor which Slavery does 
to Labor is the light in which he prefers to present it. If protec- 
tion — he demands it in the name and for the good of American 
worTclngmen^ that their minds may be quickened by diversified em- 
ployment, their position secured by abundant employment, the 
farmers enriched by markets near at hand. If Learning — he la- 
ments the unnatural divorce between Learning and Labor^ and ad- 
vocates their re-union in manual-labor schools. If ' Human Life ' — 
he cannot refrain from reminding his hearers, that " the deep want 
of the time is, that the vast resources and. capacities of Mind, the 
far-stretching powers of Genius and of Science, be brought to bear 
practically and intimately on Agriculture, the Mechanic Arts, and 
all the now rude and simple processes of Day-Labor, and not 
merely that these processes may be perfected and accelerated, 
but that the benefits of tliQ improvement may accrue in at least 
equal measure to those whose accustomed means of livelihood — 
scanty at best — are interfered with and overturned by the change." 
If the 'Formation of Character' — he calls upon men who aspire 
to possess characters equal to the demands of the time, to " question 
with firm speech all institutions, observances, customs, that they 
may determine by what mischance or illusion thriftless Pretence 
and Knavery shall seem to batten on a brecve Prosperity, while La- 
bor vainly begs employment, Skill lacks recompense, and Worth 
pines for bread." If Popular Education — he reminds us, that 
"the narrow, dingy, squalid tenement, calculated to repel any 
visitor but the cold and the rain, is hardly fitted to foster lofty 
ideas of Life, its Duties and its Aims. And he who is constrained 
to ask each morning, ' Where shall I find food for the day V is 
at best unlikely often to ask, ' By what good deed shall the day 
be signalized V " Or, in a lighter strain, he tells the story of Tom 
and the Colonel. " Tom," said a Colonel on the Eio Grande to 
one of his command, "how can so brave and good a soldier as 
you are so demean himself as to get drunk at every opportu- 
nity?" — "Colonel" replied the private, " how can you expect all 



336 ON THE PLATFORM. 

the virtues that adorn the human character for seven dollars a 
month ?" That anecdote well illustrates one side of Horace Greeley's 
view of life. 

The problems which, he says, at present puzzle the knotted brain 
of toil all over the world, which incessantly cry out for solution, 
and can never more be stifled, but will become even more vehe 
toent, till they are solved, are these : 

" WTiy should those hy whose toil all comforts and luxuries are 
iproduced^ or made available^ enjoy so scanty a share of them ? Why 
should a man able and eager to worh ever stand idle for want of em- 
Ijloyment in a world where so much needful worh imjMtiently awaits 
the doing ? Why should a man be required to surrender something 
of his inde2)endence in accepting the employment tchich will enable 
him to earn by honest effort the bread of his family ? Why should 
the man who faithfully labors for another^ and receives therefor less 
than the product of his labor^ be currently held the obliged party^ 
rather than he who buys the worTc and maTces a good bargain of it f 
In short, "Why should Speculation and Scheming ride so jauntily in 
their carriages, splashing honest Work as it trudges humbly and 
wearily by on foot ?" 

"Who is there so estranged from humanity as never to have pon- 
dered questions similar to these, whether he ride jauntily in a car- 
riage, or trudge wearily on foot ? They have been proposed in for- 
mer ages as abstractions. They are discussed now as though the 
next generation were to answer them, practically and triumph- 
antly. 

First of all, the author of Hints towards Reforms admits frankly, 
and declares emphatically, that the obstacle to the workingman's 
elevation is the workingman's own improvidence, ignorance, and 
unworthiness. This side of the case is well presented in a sketch 
of the career of the ' successfal' man of business : 

"A keen observer," says the lecturer, "could have picked him out from 
among his schoolfellows, and said, ' Here is the lad who will die a bank-presi- 
dent, owning factories and blocks of stores.' Trace his history closely," he 
continues, " and you find that, in his boyhood, he was provident and frugal — 
that he shunned expense and dissipation — that he feasted and quaffed seldom, 



THE PROBLEMS OF THE TIME. 337 

unless at others' cost — that ho was rarely seen at balls or frolics — that he was 
diligent in study and in business— that he did not hesitate to do an incompati- 
ble job, if it bade fair to be profitable— that he husbanded his hours and made 
each count one, either in earning or in preparing to work eflOtciently. He 
rarely or never stood idle because the business offered him was esteemed un- 
genteel or disagreeable — he laid up a few dollars during his minority, which 
proved a sensible help to him on going into business for himself — he married 
seasonably, prudently, respectably — he lived frugally and delved steadily 
until it clearly became him to live better, and until he could employ his time 
to better advantage than at the plow or over the bench. Thus his first thou- 
sand dollars came slowly but surely ; the next more easily and readily by the 
help of the former ; the next of course more easily still ; until now he adds 
thousands to his hoard with little apparent effort or care. * * * * Talk 
to such a man as this of the wants of the poor, and he will answer you, that 
their sons can afford to smoke and drink freely, which he at their age could 
not ; and that he now meets many of these poor in the market, buying luxu- 
ries that he cannot afford. Dwell on the miseries occasioned by a dearth of 
employment, and he will reply that he never encountered any such obstacle 
when poor ; for when he could find nothing better, he cleaned streets or stables, 
and when he could not command twenty dollars a month, he fell to work as 
heartily and cheerfully for ten or five. In vain will you seek to explain to 
him that his rare faculty both of doing and of finding to do — his wise adapta- 
tion of means to ends in all circumstances, his frugality and others' improvi- 
dence — are a part of your case — that it is precisely because all are not creat- 
ed so handy, so thrifty, so worldly-wise, as himself, that you seek so to modify 
the laws and usages of Society that a man may still labor, steadily, eflBciently, 
and live comfortably, although his youth was not improved to the utmost, and 
though his can never be the hand that transmutes all it touches to gold. Fail- 
ing here, you urge that at least his children should be guaranteed an unfail- 
ing opportunity to learn and to earn, and that they, surely, should not suffer 
nor be stifled in ignorance because of their parent's imperfections. Still you 
talk in Greek to the man of substance, unless he be one of the few who have, 
in acquiring wealth, outgrown the idolatry of it, and learned to regard it truly 
as a means of doing good, and not as an end of earthly effort. If he be a man 
of wealth merely, still cherishing the spirit which impelled him to his life-long 
endeavor, the world appears to him a vast battle-field, on which some must 
win victory and glory, while to others are accorded shattered joints and dis- 
comfiture, and the former could not be, or would lose their zest, without the 
latter." 

Sucli is the ' case' of the conservative. So looks the battle of 
life to the victor. With equal complacency the hawk may philoso- 
Dhize while he is digesting the chicken. But the chicken was of a 

15 



338 ON" THE PLATFORM. 

different opinion ; and died squeaking it to the -waving tree-tops, as 
he was borne irresistibly along to where the hawk could most con- 
veniently devour him. 

Mr. Greeley does not attempt to refute the argument of the pros- 
perous conservative. He dwells for a moment upon the fact, that 
while life is a battle in which men fight, not /or, but against each 
other, the victors must necessarily be few and ever fewer, the vic- 
tims numberless and ever more hopeless. Kesting his argument 
upon the evident fact that the majority of mankind are poor, unsafe, 
and uninstructed, he endeavors to show how the condition of the 
masses can be alleviated by legislation, and how by their own co- 
operative exertions. The State, he contends, should ordain, and the 
law should be fundamental, that no man may own more than a cer- 
tain, very limited extent of land ; that the State should fix a defini- 
tion to the phrase, ' a day's work ;' that the State should see to it, 
that no child grows up in ignorance ; that the State is bound to 
prevent the selling of alcoholio beverages. Those who are inter- 
ested in such subjects will find them amply and ably treated by 
Mr. Greeley in his published writings. 

But there are two short passages in the volume of Hints towards 
r^eforms, which seem to contain the essence of Horace Greeley's 
teachings as to the means by which the people are to be elevated, 
spiritually and materially. The following is extracted from the lec- 
ture on the Eelations of Learning to Labor. It is addressed to the 
educated and professional classes. 

""Why," asks Horace Greeley, "should not the educated class create an at- 
mosphere, not merely of exemplary morals and refined manners, but of pal- 
pable utility and blessing 7 Why should not the clergyman, the doctor, the 
lawyer, of a country town be not merely the patrons and commenders of 
every generous idea, the teachers and dispensers of all that is novel in science 
or noble in philosophy — examplars of integrity, of amenity, and of an all- 
pervading humanity to those around them — but even in a more material 
sphere regarded and blessed as universal benefactors 1 Why should they not 
be universally — as I rejoice to say that some of them are — models of wisdom 
and thrift in agriculture — their farms and gardens silent but most effective 
preachers of the benefits of forecast, calculation, thorough knowledge and 
faithful application 1 Nay, more : Why should not the educated class be 
everywhere teachers, through lectures, essays, conversations, as well as prac- 
tically, of those great and important truths of nature, which chemistry and 



THE EDUCATED CLASS. 339 

other sciences aie just revealing to bless the industrial world? Why should 
they not unobtrusively and freely teach the farmer, the mechanic, the worker 
in any capacity, how best to summon the blind forces of the elements to his 
aid, and how most effectually to render them subservient to his needs 1 All 
this is clearly within the power of the educated class, if truly educated ; all 
this is clearly within the sphere of duty appointed them by providence. Le/ 
them but do it, and they will stand where they ought to stand, at the head of 
the community, the directors of public opinion, and the universally recog 
nized benefactors of the race. 

" I stand before an audience in good part of educated men, and I plead fo? 
the essential independence of their class — not for their sakes only or. mainly 
but for the sake of mankind. I see clearly, or I am strangely bewildered, a 
deep-rooted and wide-spreading evil which is palsying the influence and par- 
alyzing the exertions of intellectual and even moral superiority all over our 
country. The lawyer, so far at least as his livelihood is concerned, is too gen- 
erally but a lawyer ; he must live by law, or he has no means of living at all. 
So with the doctor ; so alas ! with the pastor. He, too, often finds himself 
surrounded by a large, expensive family, few or none of whom have been sys- 
tematically trained to earn their bread in the sweat of their brows, and who, 
even if approaching maturity in life, lean on him for a subsistence. This son 
must be sent to the academy, and that one to college ; this daughter to an ex- 
pensive boarding-school, and that must have a piano — and all to be defrayed 
from his salary, which, however liberal, is scarcely or barely adequate to meet; 
the demands upon it. How shall this man — for man, after all, he is — with ex- 
penses, and cares, and debts pressing upon him — hope to be at all times 
faithful to the responsibilities of his high calling ! He may speak ever so flu- 
ently and feelingly against sin in the abstract, for that cannot give offence to 
the most fastidiously sensitive incumbent of the richly furnished hundred-dol- 
lar pews. But will he dare to rebuke openly, fearlessly, specially, the darling, 
and decorous vices of his most opulent and liberal parishioners — to say to the 
honored dispenser of liquid poison, • Your trade is murder, and your wealth 
the price of perdition !' — To him who amasses wealth by stinting honest labor 
of its reward and grinding the faces of the poor, ' Do not mock God by put- 
ting your reluctant dollar into the missionary box — there is no such heathen 
in New Zealand as yourself !'r-and so to every specious hypocrite around him, 
who patronizes the church to keep to windward of his conscience and freshen 
the varnish on his character, ' Thou art the man !' I tell you, friends ! he 
will not, for he cannot afford to, be thoroughly faithful ! One in a thousand 
may be, and hardly more. We do not half comprehend the profound signifi- 
cance of that statute of the old church which inflexibly enjoins celibacy on her 
clergy. The very existence of the church, as a steadfast power above the 
multitude, giving law to the people and not receiving its law day by day froni 
them, depends on its maintenance. And if we are ever to enjoy a Christian 



340 ON THE PLATFORM. 

ministry .-vhich shall systematically, promptly, fearlessly war upon every 
shape and disguise of evil— which shall fearlessly grapple with war and slave- 
ry, and every loathsome device by which man seeks to glut his appetites at 
the expense of his brother's well-being, it will be secured to us through the 
instrumentality of the very reform I advocate — a reform which shall render 
the clergyman independent of his parishioners, and enable him to say man- 
fully to all, ' You may cease to pay, but I shall not cease to preach, so long as 
you have sins to reprove, and I have strength to reprove them ! I live in 
good part by the labor of my hands, and can do so wholly whenever that shall 
become necessary to the fearless discharge of my duty. 

"A single illustration more, and I draw this long dissertation to a close. I 
shall speak now more directly to facts within my own knowledge, and which 
have made on me a deep and mournful impression. I speak to your experi- 
ence, too, friends of the Phenix and Union Societies — to your future if not to 
your past experience — and I entreat you to heed me ! Every year sends forth 
from our Colleges an army of brave youth, who have nearly or quite exhausted 
their little means in procuring what is termed an education, and must now find 
some remunerating employment to sustain them while they are more specially 
fitting themselves for and inducting themselves into a Profession. Some of 
them find and are perforce contented with some meager clerkship ; but the 
great body of them turn their attention to Literature — to the instruction of 
their juniors in some school or family, or to the instruction of the world through 
the Press. Hundreds of them hurry at once to the cities and the journals, 
seeking employment as essayists or collectors of intelligence — bright visions 
of Fame in the foreground, and the gaunt wolf Famine hard at their heels. 
Alas for them ! they do not see that the very circumstances under which they 
seek admission to the calling they have chosen almost forbid the idea of their 
succeeding in it. They do not approach the public with thoughts struggling 
for utterance, but with stomachs craving bread. They seek the Press, not that 
they may proclaim through it what it would cost their lives to repress,' but 
that they may preserve their souls to their bodies, at some rate. Do you not 
see under what immense disadvantages one of this band enters upon his selected 
vocation, if he has the rare fortune to find or make a place in it 1 He is sur- 
rounded, elbowed on every side by anxious hundreds, eager to obtain employ- 
ment on any terms ; he must write not what he feels, but what another needs ; 
must ' regret' or 'rejoice' to order, working for the day, and not venturing to 
utter a thought which the day does not readily approve. And can you fancy 
that is the foundation on which to build a lofty and durable renown — a brave 
and laudable success of any kind 1 I tell you no, young friends ! — the farthest 
from it possible. There is scarcely any position more perilous to generous 
impulses and lofty aims — scarcely any which more eminently threatens to sink 
the Man in the mere schemer and striver for subsistence and selfish gratifica- 
tion. I say, then, in deep earnestness, to every youth who hopes or desires to 



THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. 341 

become usefu to his Race or in any degree eminent through Literature, Seek 
first of all things a position of pecuniary independence ; learn to live by the 
labor of your hands, the' sweat of your face, as a necessary step toward the 
career you contemplate. If you can earn but three shillings a day by rugged 
yet moderate toil, learn to live contentedly on two shillings, and so preserve 
your mental faculties fresh and unworn to read, to observe, to think, thus pre- 
paring yourself for the ultimate path you have chosen. At length, when a 
mind crowded with discovered or elaborated truths will have utterance, begin 
to write sparingly and tersely for the nearest suitable periodical — no matter 
how humble and obscure — if the thought is in you, it will find its way to those 
who need it. Seek not compensation for this utterance until compensation 
shall seek you ; then accept it if an object, and not involving too great sacri- 
fices of independence and disregard of more immediate duties. In this way 
alone can something like the proper dignity of the Literary Character be re- 
stored and maintained. But while every man who either is or believes him- 
self capable of enlightening others, appears only anxious to sell his faculty at 
the earliest moment and for the largest price, I cannot hope that the Public 
will be induced to regard very profoundly either the lesson or the teacher." 

Such is the substance of Horace Greeley's message to the literary 
and refined. 

I turn now to the lecture on the Organization of Labor, and 
select from it a short narrative, the perusal of which will enable 
the reader to understand the nature of Mr. Greeley's advice to 
working-men. The story may decome historically valuable ; be- 
cause the principle which it illustrates may be destined to play a 
great part in the Future of Industry. It may be true, that the 
despotic principle is not essential to permanence and prosperity, 
though nothing has yet attained a condition of permanent pros- 
perity except by virtue of it. But here is the narrative, and it is 
worthy of profound consideration : 

" The first if not most important movement to be made in advance of our 
present Social position is the Organization of Labor. This is to be effect- 
ed by degrees, by steps, by installments. I propose here, in place of setting 
forth any formal theory or system of Labor Reform, simply to narrate what I 
saw and heard of the history and state of an experiment now in progress near 
Cincinnati, and which differs in no material respects from some dozen or score 
of others already commenced in various parts of the United States, not to 
Speak of twenty times as many established by the Working Men of Paris and 
other portions of France. 

" The business of Iron-Molding, casting, or whatever it may be called, 



342 



ON THE PLATFORM. 



is one of the most extensive and thrifty of the manufactures of Cincinnati, and 
I beliere the labor employed therein is quite as well rewarded as Labor gen- 
erally. It is entirely paid by the piece, according to an established scale of 
prices, so that each workman, in whatever department of the business, is paid 
according to his individual skill and industry, not a rough average of what is 
supposed to be earned by himself and others, as is the case where work is 
paid for at so much per day, week or month. I know no reason why the Iron- 
Mt)lders of Cincinnati should not have been as well satisfied with the old 
ways as anybody else. 

" Yet the system did not ' work well,' even for them. Beyond the general 
unsteadiness of demand for Labor and the ever-increasing pressure of compe- 
tition, there was a pretty steadily recurring 'dull season,' commencing about 
the first of January, when the Winter's call for stoves, &c., had been sup- 
plied, and holding on for two or three months, or until the Spring business 
opened. In this hiatus, the prior savings of the Holder were generally con- 
sumed — sometimes less, but perhaps oftener more — so that, taking one with 
another, they did not lay up ten dollars per annum. By-and-by came a col- 
lision respecting wages and a 'strike,' wherein the Journeymen tried the 
experiment of running their heads against a stone wall for months. How 
they came out of it, no matter whether victors or vanquished, the intelligent 
reader will readily guess. I never heard of any evils so serious and com- 
plicated as those which eat out the heart of Labor being, cured by doing 
nothing. 

" At length — but I believe after the strike had somehow terminated — some 
of the Journeyniien Molders said to each other : ' Standing idle is not the 
true cure for our grievances : why not employ ourselves?' They finally con- 
cluded to try it, and, in the dead of the Winter of 1847-8, when a great many 
of their trade were out of employment, the business being unusually depressed, 
they formed an association under the General Manufacturing Law of Ohio 
«' which is very similar to that of New York), and undertook to establish the 
Journeymen Holders' Union Foundry. There were about twenty of 
them who put their hands to the work, and the whol6 amount of capital they 
could scrape together was two thousand one hundred dollars, held in shares 
of twenty-five dollars each. With tlAs they purchased an eligible piece of 
f:round, directly on the bank of the Ohio, eight miles below Cincinnati, with 
which ' the Whitewater Canal' also affords the means of ready and cheap 
*,ommunication. With their capital they bought some patterns, flasks, an en- 
fi^ine and tools, paid for their ground, and five hundred dollars on their first 
ouilding, which was erected for them partly on long credit by a firm in Cin- 
einnati, who knew that the property was a perfect security for so much of its 
•,ost, and decline taking credit for any benevolence in the matter Their iron, 
«oal, &c., to commence upon were entirely and necessarily bought on credit. 
" Having elected Directors, a Foreman, and a Business Agent (the last to 



A NARRATIVE FOR WORKINGMEN. 343 ' 

open a store in Cincinnati, buy stock, sell wares, &c.) the Journeymen's Union 
set to work, in August, 1848. Its accommodations were then meager ; they 
have since been gradually enlarged by additions, until their Foundry is now 
the most commodious on the river. Their stock of patterns, flasks, &c., has 
grown to be one of the best ; while their arrangements for unloading coal and 
iron, sending oflf stoves, coking coal, &c., &c., are almost perfect. They com- 
menced with ten associates actually at work ; the number has gradually grown 
to forty ; and there is not a better set of workmen in any foundry in America. 
I profess to know a little as to the quality of castings, and there are no better 
than may be seen in the Foundry of ' Industry ' and its store at Cincinnati. 
And there is obvious reason for this in the fact that every workman is a pro- 
prietor in the concern, and it is his interest to turn out not only his own work 
in the best order, but to take care that all the rest is of like quality. All is 
carefully examined before it is sent away, and any found imperfect is con- 
demned, the loss falling on the causer of it. But there is seldom any deserv- 
ing condemnation. 

" A strict account is kept with every member, who is credited for all he does 
according to the Cincinnati Scale of Prices, paid so much as he needs of his 
earnings in money, the balance being devoted to the extension of the concern 
and the payment of its debts, and new stock issued to him therefor. When- 
ever the debts shall have been paid off, and an adequate supply of implements, 
teams, stock, &o., bought or provided for, they expect to pay every man his 
earnings weekly in cash, as of course they may. I hope, however, they will 
prefer to buy more land, erect thereon a most substantial and commodious 
dwelling, surround it with a garden, shade-trees, &c., and resolve to live as 
well as work like brethren. There are few uses to which a member can put a 
hundred dollars which might not as well be subserved by seventy-five if the 
money of the whole were invested together. 

" The members were earning when I visited them an average of fifteen dol- 
lars per week, and meant to keep doing so. Of course they work hard. Many 
of them live inside of four dollars per week, none go beyond eight. Their 
Business Agent is one of themselves, who worked with them in the Foundry 
for some months after it was started. He has often been obliged to report, ' I 
can pay you no money this week,' and never heard a murmur in reply. On 
one occasion he went down to say, ' There are my books ; you see what I have 
received and where most of it has gone ; here is one hundred dollars, which is 
all there is left.' The members consulted, calculated, and made answer : ' We 
can pay our board so as to get through another week with fifty dollars, and 
you had better take back the other fifty, for the business may need it before 
the week is through.' When I was there, there had been an Iron note to pay, 
ditto a Coal, and a boat-load of coal to lay in for the winter, sweeping ofiF all 
the money, so that for more than three weeks no man had had a dollar. Yet 
no one had thought of complaining, for all knew that the delay was dictated, 



344 ON THE PLATFORM. 

not by another's interest, but their own. They knew, too, that the assurance 
of their payment did not depend on the frugality or extravagance of some 
employer, who might swamp the proceeds of his business and their labor in an 
unlucky speculation, or a sumptuous dwelling, leaving them to whistle for 
their money. There were their year's earnings visibly around them in stoves 
and hollow ware, for which they had abundant and eager demand in Cincin- 
nati, but which a break in the canal had temporarily kept back ; in iron and 
coal for the winter's work ; in the building over their heads and the imple- 
ments in their hands. And while other molders have had work ' off and on,' 
according to the state of the business, no member of the Journeymen's Union 
has stood idle a day for want of work since their Foundry was first started. 
Of course, as their capital increases, the danger of being compelled to suspend 
work at any future day grows less and less continually. 

"The ultimate capital of the Journeymen's Union Foundry (on the pre- 
sumption that the Foundry is to stand by itself, leaving every member to pro- 
vide his own home, &c.) is to be eighteen thousand dollars, of which seven 
thousand dollars has already been paid in, most of it in labor. The remain- 
der is all subscribed by the several associates, and is to be paid in labor as fast 
as possible. That done, every man may be paid in cash weekly for his work, 
and a dividend on his stock at the close of each business year. The workers 
have saved and invested from three hundred dollars to six hundred dollars 
each since their commencement in August of last year, though those who 
have joined since the start have of course earned less. Few or none had laid 
by so much in five to ten years' working for others as they have in one year 
working for themselves. The total value of their products up to the time of 
my visit is thirty thousand dollars, and they were then making at the rate of 
five thousand dollars' worth per month, which they do not mean to diminish. 
All the profits of the business, above the cost of doing the work at journey- 
men's wages, will be distributed among the stockholders in dividends. The 
officers of the Union are a Managing Agent, Foreman of the Foundry, and 
five Directors, chosen annually, but who can be changed meantime in case of 
necessity. A Reading-Room and Library were to be started directly ; a spa- 
cious boarding-house (though ptobably not owned by the Union) will go up 
this season. No liquor is sold within a long distance of the Union, and there 
is little or no demand for any. Those original members of the Union who 
were least favorable to Temperance have seen fit to sell out and go away. 

" Now is it reasonable that the million or so of hireling laborers throughout 
our country who have work when it suits others' convenience to employ them, 
and must stand idle perforce when it does not, can read the above simple nar- 
ration — which I have tried to render as lucid as possible — and not be moved 
to action thereby 1 Suppose they receive all they earn when employed — 
which of course they generally do not, or how could employers grow rich by 
merely buying their labor and selling it again 7 — should not the simple fact 



THE CATASTROPHE. 345 

that these Associated Workers never lack employment when they desire it, 
and never ask any master's leave to refrain from working when they see fit, 
arrest public attention? Who is such a slave in soul that he would not rather 
be an equal member of a commonwealth than the subject of a despotism 1 
Who Avould not like to taste the sweets of Liberty on work-days as well as 
holidays ? Is there a creature so abject that he considers all this mere poetry 
and moonshine, which a little hard experience will dissipate ? Suppose the 
Cincinnati Iron-Molders' Association should break down, either through some 
defect in its organization or some dishonesty or other misconduct on the part 
of one or more of its members — what would that prove 7 Would it any more 
prove the impracticability of Industrial Associations than the shipwreck and 
death of Columbus, had such a disaster occurred on his second or third voyage 
to America, would have disproved the existence of the New World 1 

The story is incomplete ; the catastrophe is wanting. It can be 
told in one word, and that word is, failure! The Union existed 
about two years. It then broke up, not, as I am very positively as- 
sured, from any defect in the system upon which it was conducted ; 
but from a total stagnation in the market, which not only ruined the 
co-operators, but others engaged in the same business. They made 
castings on the co-operative principle, made them well, made them 
as long as anybody would buy them ; then — stopped. 

The reader of the volume from which I have quoted will find in 
it much that does less honor to the author's head than his heart. 
But I defy any one to read it, and not respect the man that wrote 
it. The kernel of the book is sound. The root of the matter is 
there. It shows Horace Greeley to be a man whose interest in hu- 
man welfare is sincere, habitual, innate, and indestructible. We all 
know what is the usual course of a person who — as the stupid 
phrase is — ' rises' from the condition of a manual laborer to a posi- 
tion of influence and wealth. If our own observation were not 
sufficient, Thackeray and Curtis have told the whole world the sorry 
history of the modern snob ; how he ignores his origin, and bends 
all his little soul to the task of cutting a figure in the circles to 
which he has gained admittance. 

Twenty men are suffocating in a dungeon — one man, by climb- 
ing upon the shoulders of some of his companions, and assisted up 
still higher by the strength of others, escapes^ breathes the pure air 
of heaven, exults in freedom ! Does he not, instantly and with all 

15* 



346 THREE MONTHS m EUROPE. 

his might, strive for the resdue of his late companions, still suffer- 
ing ? Is he not prompt with ix)pe, and pole, and ladder, and food, 
and cheering words ? Wo — the caitiff wanders off to seek his pleas- 
ure, and makes haste to remove from his person, and his memory 
too, every trace of his recent misery. This it is to be a snob. 
No treason like this clings to the skirts of Horace Greeley. He has 
stood by his Order. The landless, the hireling, the uninstructed — • 
he was their Companion once — he is their Champion now. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THEEE MONTHS IN EUROPE. 

Hie Voyage out— First impressions of England— Opening of the Exhibition— Charac- 
teristic observations— He attends a grand Banquet— He sees the Sights— He spealcB 
at Exeter Hall— The Play at Devonshire House— Robert Owen's birth-day— Horace 
Greeley before a Committee of the House of Commons— He throws light upon the 
subject — Vindicates the American Press— Journey to Paris — The Sights of Paris — 
The Opera and Ballet— A false Prophet— His opinion of the French— Journey to 
Italy— Anecdote— A nap in the Diligence— Arrival at Rome— lu the Galleries- 
Scene in the Coliseum— To England again— Triumph of the American Reaper— A 
week in Ireland and Scotland— His opinion of the English— Homeward Bound— 
His arrival— The Extra Tribune. 

" The tMng called Crystal Palace !" This was the language 
A^hich the intense and spiritual Carlyle thought proper to employ 
on the only occasion when he alluded to the "World's Fair of 1851. 
And Horace Greeley appears, at first, to have thought little of 
Prince Albert's scheme, or at least to have taken little interest in it. 
" "We mean," he said, " to attend the World's Fair at London, with 
very little interest in the show generally, or the people whom it 
will collect, but with special reference to a subject which seems to 
us of great and general importance — namely, the improvements re- 
cently made, or now being made, in the modes of dressing flax and 
hemp and preparing them to be spun and woven by steam or water- 
power." " Only adequate knowledge," he thought, was necessary 
to give a new and profitable direction to Free Labor, both agricul- 
tural and manufacturing." 



THE VOYAGE OUT. 347' 

A.ccordingly, Horace Greeley was one of the two thousand 
A.mericans who crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of attending 
the World's Fair, and, like many others, he seized the opportuni- 
ty to make a hurried tour of the most accessible parts of the Eu- 
ropean Continent. It was the longest holiday of his life. Holi- 
day is not the word, however. His sky was changed, but not the 
man ; and his labors in Europe were as incessant and arduous as 
they had been in America, nor unlike them in kind. A strange ap- 
parition he among * the elegant and leisurely Europeans. Since 
Franklin's day, no American had appeared in Europe whose ' style' 
had in it so little of the European as his, nor one who so well and so 
consistently represented some of the best sides of the American 
character. He proved to be one of the Americans who can calmly 
contemplate a duke, and value him neither the less nor the more on 
account of his dukeship. Swiftly he travelled. Swiftly we pursue 
him. 

At noon on Saturday, the sixteenth of April, 1851, the steamship 
Baltic moved from the wharf at the foot of Canal-street, with Hor- 
ace Greeley on board as one of her two hundred passengers. It 
was a chilly, dismal day, with a storm brewing and lowering in the 
north-east. The wharf was covered with people, as usual on sailing 
days ; and when the huge vessel was seen to be in motion, and the 
inevitable White Coat was observed among the crowd on her deck, 
a hearty cheer broke from a group of Mr. Greeley's personal 
friends, and was caught up by the rest of the spectators. He 
took off his hat and waved response and farewell, while the 
steamer rolled away like a black cloud, and settled down upon the 
river. 

The passage was exceedingly disagreeable, though not tempest- 
uous. The north-easter that hung over the city when the steamer 
sailed 'clung to her like a brother' all the way over, varying a 
point or two now and then, but not changing to a fair wind for 
more than six hours. Before four o'clock on the first day — before 
the steamer had gone five miles from the Hook, the pangs of sea- 
sickness came over the soul of Horace Greeley, and laid him pros- 
trate. At six o'clock in the evening, a friend, who found him in 
the smoker's room, helpless, hopeless, and recumbent, persuaded and 
assisted him to go below, where he had strength only to unboot 



848 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. 

and sway into his berth. There he remaited for twenty-four hours. 
He then managed to crawl upon deck ; but a perpetual head-wind 
and cross-sea were too much for so delicate a system as his, and he 
enjoyed not one hour of health and happiness during the passage. 
His opinion of the sea, therefore, is unfavorable. He thought, that 
a sea-voyage of twelve days was about equal, in the amount of 
misery it inflicts, to two months' hard labor in the State Prison, 
or to the average agony of five years of life on shore. It was a 
consolation to him, however, even when most sick and impatient, 
to think that the gales which were so adverse to the pleasure- 
seekers of the Baltic, were wafting the emigrant ships, which it 
hourly passed, all the more swiftly to the land of opportunity and 
hope. His were ' light afflictions' compared with those of the mul- 
titudes crowded into their stifling steerages. 

At seven o'clock on the evening of Thursday, the twenty-eighth 
of April, under sullen skies and a dripping rain, the passengers of 
the Baltic were taken ashore at Liverpool in a steam- tug, which in 
N"ew York, thought Mr. Greeley, would be deemed unworthy to 
convey market-garbage. "With regard to the weather, he tells us, 
in his first letter from England, that he had become reconciled to 
sullen skies and dripping rains : he wanted to see the thing out, and 
would have taken amiss any deceitful smiles of fortune, now that 
he had learned to dispense with her favors. He advised Ameri- 
cans, on the day of their departure for Europe, to take a long, ear- 
nest gaze at the sun, that they might know him again on their re- 
turn ; for the thing called Sun in England was only shown occasion- 
ally, and bore a nearer resemblance to a boiled turnip than to its 
American namesake. 

Liverpool the traveller scarcely saw, and it impressed him un- 
favorably. The working-class seemed "exceedingly ill-dressed, 
stolid, abject, and hopeless." Extortion and beggary appeared very 
prevalent. In a day or two he was ofi" to London by the Trent 
Valley Railroad, which passes through one of the finest agricultural 
districts in England. 

To most men their first ride in a foreign country is a thrilling 
and memorable delight. Whatever Horace Greeley may have felt 
on his journey from Liverpool to London, his remarks upon what 
he saw are the opposite of rapturous ; yet, as they are character- 



OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION. 349 

istic, they are interesting. The mind of that man is a ' study,' who, 
when he has passed through two hundred miles of the enchantiug 
rural scenery of England, and sits down to write a letter about it, 
begins by describing the construction of the railroad, continues by 
telling us that much of the land he saw is held at five hundred 
dollars per acre, that two-thirds of it was ' in grass,' that there are 
fewer fruit-trees on the two hundred miles of railroad between 
Liverpool and London, than on the forty miles of the Harlem rail- 
road north of White Plains, that the wooded grounds looked 
meager and scanty, and that the western towns of America ought 
to take warning from this fact and preserve some portions of the 
primeval forest, which, once destroyed, can never be renewed by 
cultivation in their original grandeur. ' The eye sees what it 
brought with it the means of seeing,' and these practical observa- 
tions are infinitely more welcome than affected sentiment, or even 
than genuine sentiment inadequately expressed. Besides, the sug- 
gestion with regard to the primeval forests is good and valuable. 
On his arrival in London, Mr. Greeley drove to the house of Mr. 
John Chapman, the well-known publisher, with whom he resided 
during his stay in the metropolis. 

On the first of May the Great Exhibition was opened, and our 
traveler saw the show both within and without the Crystal Palace. 
The day was a fine one — for England. He thought the London sun- 
shine a little superior in brilliancy to American moonlight ; and 
wondered how the government could have the conscience to tax 
such Kght. The royal procession, he says, was not much ; a parade 
of the New York Firemen or Odd Fellows could beat it ; but then 
it was a new thing to see a Queen, a court, and an aristocracy doing 
honor to industry. He was glad to see the queen in the pageant, 
though he could not but feel that her wcation was behind the intel- 
ligence of the age, and likely to go out of fashion at no distant day; 
but not through her fault. He could not see, however, what the 
Master of the Buck-hounds, the Groom of the Stole, the Mistress of 
the Eobes, and ' such uncouth fossils,' had to do with a grand ex- 
hibition of. the fruits of industry. The Mistress of the Eobes made 
no robes ; the Ladies of the Bed-chamber di d nothing with beds but 
sleep on them. The posts of honor nearest the Queen's person ought 
to have been confided to the descendants of Watt and Arkwright, 



350 THREE MONTHS I» EUROPE. 

' Napoleon's real conquerors ;' while the foreign ambassadors should 
have been the sons of Fitch, Fulton, Whitney, Daguerre and Morse ; 
and the places less conspicuous should have been assigned, not to 
Gold-stick, Silver-stick, and ' kindred absurdities,' but to the Queen's 
gardeners, horticulturists, carpenters, upholsterers and miUiners! 
(Fancy Gold-stick reading this passage !) The traveler, however, 
even at such a moment is not unmindful of similar nuisances across 
the ocean, and pauses to express the hope that we may be able, be- 
fore the century is out, to elect ' something else' than Generals to 
the Presidency. 

Before the arrival of Mr. Greeley in London, he had been named 
by the American Commissioner as a member of the Jury on Hard- 
ware, etc. There were so few Americans in London at the time, 
who were not exhibitors, that he did not feel at liberty to decline 
the duties of the proffered post, and accordingly devoted nearly 
every day, from ten o'clock to three, for a month, to an examination 
of the articles upon whose comparative merits the jury were to de- 
cide. Few men would have spent their first month in Europe in 
the discharge of a duty so onerous, so tedious, and so hkely to be 
thankless. His reward, however, was, that his official position 
opened to him sources of information, gave him facilities for obser- 
vation, and enabled him to form acquaintances, that would not have 
been within the compass of a mere spectator of the Exhibition. 
Among other advantages, it procured him a seat at the banquet 
given at Richmond by the London Commissioners to the Commis- 
sioners from foreign countries, a feast presided over by Lord Ash- 
burton, and attended by an ample representation of the science, 
talent, worth and rank of both hemispheres. It was the particular 
desire of Lord Ashbm-ton that the health of Mr. Paxton, the Archi- 
tect of the Palace, should be proposed by an American, and Mr. 
Riddle, the American Commissioner, designated Horace Greeley for 
that service. The speech delivered by him on that occasion, since 
it is short, appropriate, and characteristic, may properly have a 
place here. Mr. Greeley, being called upon by the Chairman, spoke 
as follows : 

" In ray own land, my lords and gentlemen, ■where Nature is still so rugged 
and unconquered, where Population is yet so scanty and the demands for hu- 
man exertion are so various and urgent, it is but natural that we should ran- 



HE ATTENDS A GREAT BANQUET. 351 

der marked honor to Labor, and especially to those who by invention or dis- 
covery contribute to shorten the processes and increase the efficiency of Indus- 
try. It is but natural, therefore, that this grand conception of a comparison 
of the state of Industry in all Nations,, by means of a World's Exhibition, 
should there have been received and canvassed with a lively and general in- 
terest, — an interest which is not measured by the extent of our contributions. 
Ours is still one of the youngest of Nations, with few large accumulations of 
the fruits of manufacturing activity or artistic skill, and these so generally 
needed for use that we were not likely to send them three thousand miles 
Away, merely for show. It is none the less certain that the progress of this 
great Exhibition, from its original conception to that perfect realization which 
we here commemorate, has been watched and discussed Hot more earnestly 
throughout the saloons of Europe, than by the smith's forge and the mechanic's 
bench in America. Especially the hopes and fears alternately predominant on 
this side with respect to the edifice required for the Exhibition — the doubts as 
to the practicability of erecting one sufficiently capacious and commodious to 
contain and display the contributions of the whole world — the apprehension 
that it could not be rendered impervious to water — the confident assertions that 
it could not be completed in season for opening the Exhibition on the first of 
May as promised — all found an echo on our shores ; and now the tidings that 
all these doubts have been dispelled, these difficulties removed, will have been 
hailed there with unmingled satisfaction. 

"I trust, gentlemen, that among the ultimate fruits of this Exhibition wo 
are to reckon a wider and deeper appreciation of the worth of Labor, and 
especially of those ' Captains of Industry' by whose conceptions- and achieve- 
ments our Eace is so rapidly borne onward in its progress to a loftier and 
more benignant destiny. We shall not be likely to appreciate less fully the 
merits of the wise Statesmen, by whose measures a People's thrift and hap- 
piness are promoted — of the brave Soldier, who joyfully pours out his blood in 
defense of the rights or in vindication of the honor of his Country — of the 
Sacred Teacher, by whose precepts and example our steps are guided in the 
pathway to heaven — if we render fit honor also to those ' Captains of Industry' 
whose tearless victories redden no river and whose conquering march is un- 
marked by the tears of the widow and the cries of the orphan. I give you, 
therefore, 

" The Health of Joseph Faxton, Esq., Designer of the Crystal Palace — 
Honor to him whose genius does honor to Industry and to Man !" 

This speech was not published in the newspaper report of the 
banquet, nor was the name of the speaker even mentioned. The 
omission gave him an opportunity to retort upon the London Times 
its assertion, that with the English press, ' fidelity in reporting is a 
religion.' The speech was written out by Mr. Greeley himself, and 



352 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. 

published in the Tribune. It must be confessed, that the grad >io 
of a Yermont printing-office made a creditable appearance bofore 
the ' lords and gentlemen.' 

The sights in and about London seem to have made no great im- 
pression on the mind of Horace Greeley. He spent a day at Hamp- 
ton Court, which he oddly describes as larger than the Astc/ House, 
but less lofty and containing fewer rooms. WestminsfeA* Abbey 
appeared to him a mere barbaric profusion of lofty ceilings, stained 
windows, carving, graining, and all manner of contrivances for 
absorbing labor and money — ' waste, not taste ; the contortions of the 
sybil without her inspiration.' The part of the building devoted to 
public worship he thought less adapted to that purpose than a fifty- 
thousand dollar church in New York. The new fashion of ' inton- 
ing ' the service sounded to his ear, as though a Friar Tuck had 
wormed himself into the desk and was trying, under pretense of 
reading the service, to caricature, as broadly as possible, the alleged 
peculiarity of the methodistic pulpit super-imposed upon the regular 
Yankee drawl. Tlie Epsom races he declined to attend for three 
reasons; he had much to do at home, he did not care a button 
which of thirty colts could run fastest, and he preferred that his 
delight and that of swindlers, robbers, and gamblers, should not 
' exactly coincide.' He found time, however, to visit the Model 
Lodging houses, the People's Bathing establishments, and a Ragged 
School. The spectacle of want and woe presented at the Ragged 
School touched him nearly. It made him feel, to quote his own 
language, that "he had hitherto said too Httle, done too little, dared 
too little, sacrified too little, to awaken attention to the infernal 
wrongs and abuses, which are inherent in the very structure and 
constitution, the nature and essence of civilized society, as it now 
exists throughout Christendom." He was in haste to be gone from 
a scene, to look upon which, as a mere visitor, seemed an insult 
heaped on injury, an unjustifiable prying into the saddest secrets of 
the prison-house of human woe ; but he apologized for the fancied 
impertinence by a gift of money. 

While in London, Mr. Greeley attended the anniversary of the 
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and made a speech cf a 
somewhat novel and unexpected nature. The question that was 
under discussion was, 'What can we Britons do to hasten the over- 



HE SPEAKS AT EXETER HALL. 353 

throw of Slavery V Three colored gentlemen and an M. P. had 
extolled Britain as the land of true freedom and equality, had 
urged Britons to refuse recognition to ' pro-slavery clergymen,' to 
avoid using the products of slave-labor, and to assist the free-colored 
people to educate their children. One of the colored orators had 
observed the entrance of Horace Greeley, and named him commend- 
ingly to the audience ; whereupon he was invited to take a seat 
upon the platform, and afterwards to address the meeting; both of 
which invitations were promptly accepted. He spoke fifteen min- 
utes. He began by stating the fact, that American Slavery justifies 
itself mainly on the ground, that the class who live by manual toil 
are everywhere, but particularly in England^ degraded and ill-re- 
quited. Therefore, he urged upon English Abolitionists, first, to use 
systematic exertions to increase the reward of Labor and the com- 
fort and consideration of the depressed Laboring Class at Home ; 
and to diff'use and cherish respect for Man as Man, without regard 
to class, color or vocation. Secondly, to put forth determined ef- 
forts for the eradication of those Social evils and miseries in Eng- 
land, which are appealed to and relied on by slaveholders and their 
champions everywhere as justifying the continuance of Slavery; 
and thirdly, to colonize our Slave States by thousands of intelligent, 
moral, industrious Free Laborers, who will silently and practically 
dispel the wide-spread delusion which affirms that the Southern 
States must be cultivated and their great staples produced by Slave 
Labor, or not at all. 

These suggestions were listened to with respectful attention ; but 
they did not elicit the 'thunder of applause' which had greeted the 
' Stand-aside-for-I-am-holier-than-thou ' oratory of the preceding 
speakers. 

Our traveler witnessed the second performance at the Devonshire 
House, of Bulwer's play, 'Not so Bad as we Seem,' for the benefit 
of the Literary Guild, the characters by Charles Dickens, Douglas 
Jerrold, and other literary notabilities. Not that he hoped much 
for the success of the project; but it was, at least, an attempt to 
mend the fortunes of unlucky British authors, whose works 'we 
Americans habitually steal,' and to whom he, as an individual, felt 
himself indebted. The price of the tickets for the first performance 
was twenty-five dollars. He applied for one too late, and was there- 



354 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. 

fore obliged to content himself with purchasing a ten-dollar ticket 
for the second. The play, however, he found rather dull than 
otherwise, the performance being indebted, he thought, forlts maiia 
interest to the personal character of the actors, who played respect- 
ably for amateurs, but not well. Dickens was not at home in the 
leading part, as ' stateliness sits ill upon him ;' but he shone in the 
scene where, as a bookseller in disguise, he tempts the virtue of a 
poor author. In the afterpiece, however, in which the novelist 
personated in rapid succession a lawyer, a servant, a gentleman and 
an invalid, the acting seemed ' perfect,' and the play was heartily 
eujoyed throughout. Mr. Greeley thought, that the " raw material 
of a capital comedian was put to a better use when Charles Dickens 
took to authorship." It was half-past twelve when the curtain fell, 
and the audience repaired to a supper room, where the munificence 
of the Duke of Devonshire had provided a superb and profuse enter- 
tainment. "I did not venture, at that hour," says the traveler, " to 
partake ; but those who did would be quite unlikely to repent of it 
— till morning." He left the ducal mansion at one, just as ' the vio- 
lins began to give note of coming melody, to which nimble feet 
were eager to respond.' 

The eightieth birthday of Robert Owen was celebrated on the 
fourteenth of May, by a dinner at the Colbourne hotel, attended by 
a few of Mr. Owen's personal friends, among whom Horace Gree- 
ley was one. " I cannot," wrote Mr. Greeley, " see many things as 
he does ; it seems to me that he is stone-blind on the side of Faith 
in the invisible, and exaggerates the truths he perceives until they 
almost become falsehoods ; but I love his sunny benevolent nature, 
I admire his unwearied exertions for what he deems the good of 
humanity ; and, believing with the great apostle to the Gentiles, 
that ' Now abide faith, hope, charity ; these three ; but the great- 
est of these is charity,' I consider him practically a better Chris- 
tian than half those who, professing to be such, believe more and do 
less." The only other banquet at which Mr. Greeley was a guest in 
London during his first visit, was the dinner of the Fishmonger's 
Company. There he heard a harangue from from Sir James 
Brooke, the Rajah of Borneo. From reading, he had formed the 
opinion that the Rajah was doing a good work for civilization 
and humanity in Borneo, but this impression was not confirmed 



BEFORE A COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 855 

by the ornate and fluent speecli delivered by him on this occa- 
Bion. 

-During Mr. Greeley's stay in London, the repeal of the ' taxes on 
knowledge ' was agitated in and out of parliament. Those taxes 
were a duty on advertisements, and a stamp-duty of one penny per 
copy on yf sry periodical containing news. A parliamentary com- 
mittee, consisting of eight members of the House of Commons, the 
Rt. Hon. T. Milnor Gibson, Messrs. Tufnell, Ewart, Cobden, Rich, 
Adair, Hamilton, and Sir J. Walmsey, had the subject under con- 
sideration, and Mr. Greeley, as the representative of the only un- 
trammeled press in the world, was invited to give the committee 
the benefit of his experience. Mr. Greeley's evidence, given in 
two sessions of the committee, no doubt had influence upon the 
subsequent action of parliament. The advertisement duty was en- 
tirely removed. The penny stamp was retained for revenue rea- 
sons only, but must finally yield to the demands of the nation. 

The chief part of Mr. Greeley's evidence claims a place in this 
work, both because of its interesting character, and because it 
really influenced legislation on a subject of singular importance. 
He told England what England did not understand before he told 
her — why the Times newspaper was devouring its contemporaries ; 
and he assisted in preparing the way for that coming penny-press 
which is destined to play so great a part in the future of ' Great 
England.' 

In reply to a question by the chairman of the committee with re- 
gard to the eflTect of the duty upon the advertising business, Mr. 
Greeley replied substantially as follows : 

"Your duty is the same on the advertisements in a journal with fifty 
thousand circulation, as in a journal with one thousand, although the value 
of the article is twenty times as much in the one case as in the other. The 
duty operates precisely as though you were to lay a tax of one shilling a day 
on every day's labor that a man were to do ; to a man whose labor is worth 
two shillings a day, it would be destructive ; while by a man who earns twen- 
ty shillings a day, it would be very lightly felt. An advertisement is worth 
but a certain amount, and the public soon get to know what it is worth ; you 
put a duty on advertisements and you destroy the value of those coming to 
new establishments. People who advertise in your well-established journals, 
*ould afford to pay a price to include the duty ; but in a new pap^r, the adver- 



356 THREE MONThI IN EUROPE. 

tisementg vrould not be worth the amount of the duty alone; and consequent- 
ly the new concern would have no chance Now, the advertisements are one 
main source of the income of daily papers, and thousands of business men 
take them mainly for those advertisements. For instance, at the time when 
our auctioneers were appointed by law (they were, of course, party politicians), 
one journal, which was high in the confidence of the party in power, obtained 
not a law, but an understandings that all the auctioneers appointed should ad- 
vertise in that journal. Now, though the journal referred to has ceased to 
be of that party, and the auctioneers are no longer appointed by the State, 
yet that journal has almost the monopoly of the auctioneer's business to this 
day. Auctioneers miLst advertise in it because they know that purchasers are 
looking there ; and purchasers must take the paper, because they know that it 
contains just the advertisements they want to see ; and this, without regard to 
the goodness or the principles of the paper. I know men in this town who 
take one journal mainly for its advertisements, and they must take the Times, 
because everything is advertised in it ; for the same reason, advertisers must 
advertise in the Times. If we had a duty on advertisements, I will not say 
it would be impossible to build a new concern up in New York against the 
competition of the older ones ; but I do say, it would be impossible to preserve 
the weaker papers from being swallowed up by the stronger." 

Mr. CoBDEN. "Do you then consider the fact, that the Times newspaper 
for the last fifteen years has been increasing so largely in circulation, is to be 
accounted for mainly by the existence of the advertisement duty 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; much more than the stamp. By the operation of the 
advertisement duty, an advertisement is charged ten times as much in one 
paper as in another. An advertisement in the Times may be worth five 
pounds, while in another paper it is only worth one pound ; but the duty is 
the same." 

Mr. Rich. "The greater the number of small advertisements in papers, 
the greater the advantage to their proprietors 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " Yes. Suppose the cost of a small advertisement to be five 
shillings, the usual charge in the Times ; if you have to pay a shilling or 
eighteen pence duty, that advertisement is worth nothing in a journal with a 
fourth part of the circulation of the Times." 

Chairman. " Does it not appear to you that the taxes on the press are 
hostile to one another ; in the first place, lessening the circulation of papers 
by means of the stamp duty, we diminish the consumption of paper, and 
therefore lessen the amount of paper duty ; secondly, by diminishing the sale 
of papers through the stamp, we lessen the number of advertisements, and 
therefore the receipts of the advertisement duty ?" 

Mr. Greeley. " I should say that if the government were, simply as a mat- 
ter of revenue, to fix a duty, say of half a penny per pound, on paper, it would 
be easily collected, and produce more money ; and then, a law which is equal 



HE THROWS LIGHT UPON THE SUBJECT. 357 

in its operation does not require any considerable number of officers to collect 
the duty, and it would require no particular vigilance ; and the duty on paper 
alone would be most equal and most efficient as a revenue duty." 

Chairman. " It is clear, then, that the effect of the stamp and advertise- 
ment duty is to lessen the amount of the receipt from the duty on paper." 

Mr. Greeley. " Enormously. I see that the circulation of daily papers in 
London is but sixty thousand, against a hundred thousand in New 'York ; 
while the tendency is more to concentrate on London than on New York. Not 
a tenth part of our daily papers are printed in New York." 

Mr. CoBDEN. " Do you consider, that there are upwards of a million papers 
issued daily from the press in the United States 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " I should say about a million : I cannot say upwards. I 
think there are about two hundred and fifty daily journals published in the 
United States." 

Mr. CoBDEN. " At what amount of population does a town in the United 
States begin to have a daily paper 7 They first of all begin with a weekly 
paper, do they not 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " Yes. The general rule is, that each county will have one 
weekly newspaper. In all the Free States, if a county have a population of 
twenty thousand, it has two papers, one for each party. The general average 
in the agricultural counties is one local journal to every ten thousand inhab- 
itants. When a town grows to have fifteen thousand inhabitants in and about 
it, then it has a daily paper ; but sometimes that is the case when it has as few 
as ten thousand : it depends more on the business of a place than its popula- 
tion. But fifteen thousand may be stated as the average at which a daily pa- 
per commences ; at twenty thousand they have two, and so on. In central 
towns, like Buffalo, Rochester, Troy, they have from three to five daily jour- 
nals, each of which prints a semi-weekly or a weekly journal." 

Mr. Rich. " Have your papers much circulation outside the towns in which 
they are published?" 

Mr. Greeley. " The county is the general limit ; though some have a 
judicial district of five or six counties." 

Mr. Rich. " Would the New York paper, for instance, have much circula- 
tion in Charleston 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " The New York Herald, I think, which is considered the 
journal most friendly to Southern interests, has a considerable circula- 
tion." 

Chairman. " When a person proposes to publish a paper in New York, he 
is not required to go to any office to register himself, or to give security that 
he will not insert libels or seditious matter 7 A newspaper publisher is not 
subject to any liability more than other persons 7" 

Mr. Greeley. "No; no more than a man that starts a blacksmith's 
chop." 



358 THREE MONTHB IN EUROPE. 

Chairman. ■* They do not presume in the United States, that becanse a 
man is going to print news in a paper, he is going to libel?" 

Mr. Geeeley. " No ; nor do they presume that his libelling would be 
worth much, unless he is a responsible character." 

Mr. CoBDEN. "From what you have stated with regard to the circulation 
of the daily papers in New York, it appears that a very large proportion of the 
adult population must be customers for them V 

Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; I think three-fourths of all the families take a dailj 
paper of some kind." 

Mr. Cobden. " The purchasers of the daily papers must consist of a differ- 
ent class from those in England ; mechanics must purchase them?" 

Mr. Greeley. " Every mechanic takes a paper, or nearly every one." 

Mr. Cobden. " Do those people generally get them before they leave home 
for their work?" 

Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; and you are complained of if you do not furnish a 
man with his newspaper at his breakfast ; he wants to read it between six or 
seven usually." 

Mr. Cobden. " Then a ship-builder, or a cooper, or a joiner, needs his daily 
paper at his breakfast-time?" 

Mr. Greeley. "Yes ; and he may take it with him to read at his dinner, 
between twelve and one ; but the rule is, that he wants his paper at his break- 
fast." 

Mr. Cobden. " After he has finished his breakfast or his dinner, he may 
be found reading the daily newspaper, just as the people of the upper classes 
do in England?" 

Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; if they do." 

Mr. Cobden. " And that is quite common, is it not?" 

Mr. Greeley. " Almost universal, I think. There is a very low class, a 
good many foreigners, who do not know how to read ; but no native, I think." 

Mr. EwART. " Do the agricultural laborers read much ?" 

Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; they take our weekly papers, which they receive 
through the post generally." 

Mr. Cobden. " The working people in New York are not in the habit of 
resorting to public-houses to read the newspapers, are they ?" 

Mr. Greeley. " They go to public-houses, but not to read the papers. It 
is not the general practice ; but, still, we have quite a class who do so." 

Mr. Cobden. " The newspapers, then, is not the attraction to the public- 
house?" 

Mr. Greeley. "No, I think a very small proportion of our reading class 
go there at all ; those that I have seen there are mainly the foreign popula- 
tion, those who do not read." 

Chairman. " Are there any papers published in New York, or in other 
parts, which may be said to be of an obscene or immoral character ?" 



VINDICATES THE AMERICAN PRESS. 359 

Mr. Greeley. " "We call the New York Herald a very bad paper— tiioso 
who do not like it ; but that is not the cheapest." 

Chairman. " Have you heard of a paper called the ' The'Town,' publish- 
ed in this country, with pictures of a certain character in it 1 Have you any 
publications in the United States of that character 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " Not daily papers. There are weekly papers got up from 
time to time called the ' Scorpion,' the ' Flash,' and so on, whose purpose is to 
extort money from parties who can be threatened with exposure of immora 
practices, or for visiting infamous houses." 

Mr. E WART. " They do not last, do they 7" 

Mr Greeley. "I do not know of any one being continued for any con- 
siderable time. If one dies, another is got up, and that goes down. Our 
cheap daily papers, the very cheapest, are, as a class, quite as discreet in their 
conduct and conversation as other journals. They do not embody the same 
amount of talent ; they devote themselves mainly to news. They are not 
party journals ; they are nominally independent ; they are not given to harsh 
language with regard to public men : they are very moderate. 

Mr. EwART. " Is scurillity or personality common in the publications of 
the United States 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " It is not common ; it is much less frequant than it was ; 
but it is not absolutely unknown." 

Mr. CoBDEN. " What is the circulation of the New York Herald 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " Twenty-five thousand, I believe." 

Mr. CoBDEN. " Is that an influential paper in America 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " I think not." 

Mr. CoBDEN. " It has a higher reputation in Europe probably than at home." 

Mr. Greeley. " A certain class of journals in this country find it their in- 
terest or pleasure to quote it a good deal." 

Chairman. " As the demand is extensive, is the remuneration for the ser- 
vices of the literary men who are employed on the press, good 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " The prices of literary labor are more moderate than in this 
country. The highest salary, I think, that would be commanded by any one 
connected with the press would be five thousand dollars — the highest that 
could be thought of. I have not heard of higher than three thousand." 

Mr. Rich. " What would be about the ordinary remuneration 7" 

Mr. Greelity. " In our own concern it is, besides the principal editor, from 
fifteen hundred dollars down to five hundred. I think that is the usual range." 

Chairman. " Are your leading men in America, in point of literary abil- 
ity, employed from time to time upon the press as an occupation 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " It is beginning to be so, but it has not been the custom. 
There have been leading men connected with the press ; but the press has not 
been usually conducted by the most powerful men. With a few exceptions, 
the leading political journals aro conducted ably, and they are becoming more 



360 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. 

SO ; and, with a wider diffusion of the circulation, the press is more %hle to ]fay 
for it." 

Mr. Rich. " Is it a profession apart 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " No ; usually the men have been brought up to the bar, to 
the pulpit, and so on ; they are literary men." 

Chairman. " I presume that the non-reading class in the United States is 
a very limited one 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; except in the Slave States." 

Chairman. " Do not you consider that newspaper reading is calculated to 
keep up a habit of reading 7" 

• Mr. Greeley. "I think it is worth all the schools in the country. I think 
it creates a taste for reading in every ohild's mind, and it increases his inter- 
est in his lessons ; he is attracted from always seeing a newspaper and hear- 
ing it read, I think." 

Chairman. " Supposing that you had your schools as now, but that your 
newspaper press were reduced within the limits of the press in England, do 
you not think that the habit of reading acquired at school would be frequently 
laid aside 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " I think that the habit would not be acquired, and that 
paper reading would fall into disuse." 

Mr. EwART. " Having observed both countries, can you state whether the 
press has greater influence on public opinion in the United States than in Eng- 
land, or the reverse 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " I think it has more influence with us. I do not know that 
any class is despotically governed by the press, but its influence is more uni- 
versal ; every one reads and talks about it with us, and more weight is laid 
upon intelligence than on editorials; the paper which brings the quickest news 
is the thing looked to." 

Mr. EwAHT. " The leading article has not so much influence as in England 7" 

Mr. Greeley. '* No; the telegraphic dispatch is the great point." 

Mr. CoBDEN. " Observing our newspapers and comparing them with the 
American papers, do you find that we make much less use of the electric tele- 
graph for transmitting news than in America 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " Not a hundredth part as much as we do." 

Mr. CoBDEN. " An impression prevails in this country that our newspaper 
press incurs a great deal more expense to expedite new3 than you. do in New 
York. Are you of that opinion 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " I do not know what your expense is. I should say that a 
hundred thousand dollars a year is paid by our association of the six leading 
daily papers, besides what each gets separately for itself." 

Mr. CoBDEN. " Twenty thousand pounds a year is paid by your associ- 
ation, consisting of six papers, for what you get in common 7" 

Mr. Greeley. " Yes ; we telegraph a great deal in the United States. As- 



THE SIGHTS OF PARIS. 361 

suming that a scientific meeting was held at Cincinnati this year, we should 
telegraph the reports from tliat place, and I presume other journals would 
have special reporters to report the proceedings at length. We have a report 
every day, fifteen hundred miles, from New Orleans daily ; from St. Louis 
too, and other places." 

" The Committee then adjourned." 

Ou Saturday morning, the seventh of June, after a residence of 
seven busy weeks in London, our traveler left that ' magnificent 
Babel,' for Paris, selecting the dearest and, of course, the quickest 
route. Dover, quaint and curious Dover, he thought a ' mean old 
town;' and the steamboat which conveyed him from Dover to 
Calais was ' one of those long, black, narrow scow-contrivances, 
about equal to a buttonwood dug-out, which England appears to 
delight in.' Two hours of deadly sea-sickness, and he stood on the 
shores of France. At Calais, v/hich he styles ' a queer old town,' 
he was detained a long hour, obtained an execrable dinner for 
thirty-seven and a half cents, and changed some sovereigns for 
French money, ' at a shave which was not atrocious.' Then away 
to Paris by the swiftest train, arriving at half-past two on Sunday 
morning, four hours after the time promised in the enticing adver- 
tisement of the route. The ordeal of the custom-house he passed 
with little delay. "I did not," he says, "at first comprehend, tliat 
the number on my trunk, standing out fair before me in hon- 
est, unequivocal Arabic figures, could possibly mean anything but 
' fifty-two ;' but a friend cautioned me in season that those figures 
spelled 'cinquante-deux,' or phonetically 'eank-on-du' to the oflicer, 
and I made my first attempt at mouthing French accordingly, and 
succeeded in making myself intelhgible." 

About daylight on Sunday morning, he reached the Hotel Choi- 
eeul, Rue St. Honoro, where he found shelter, but not bed. After 
breakfast, however, he sallied forth and saw his first sight in Paris, 
high mass at the Church of the Madeleine ; which he thought a 
gorgeous, but ' inexplicable dumb show.' 

Eight days were all that the indefatigable man could aflord to a 
stay in the gay capital ; but he improved the time. The obehsk of 
Luxor, brought from the banks of the JSTile, and covered with mys- 
terious inscriptions, that had braved the winds and rains of four 
thousand years, impressed him more deeply than any object he had 

1@ 



362 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. 

seen in Europe. The Tuileries wel-e to his eye only an irregnlar 
mass of buildings with little architectural beauty, and remarkable 
chiefly for their magnitude. At the French Opera, he saw the 
musical spectacle of Azael the Prodigal, or rather, three acts of it ; 
for his patience gave way at the end of the third act. " Such a 
medley of drinking, praying, dancing, idol-worship, and Delilah- 
craft he had never before encountered." To comprehend an Eng- 
lishman, he says, follow him to the fireside ; a Frenchman, join him 
at the opera, and contemplate him during the performance of the bal- 
let, of which France is the cradle and the home. " Though no prac- 
titioner^'''' he adds, "I am yet a lover of the dance;" but the attitudes 
and contortions of the ballet are disagreeable and tasteless, and 
the tendency of such a performance as he that night beheld^ was 
earthy, sensual, and develish. Notre Dame he thought not only the 
finest church, but the most imposing edifice in Paris, infinitely supe- 
rior, as a place of worship, to the damp, gloomy, dungeon-like 
Westminster Abbey. The Hotel de Ville, like the New York City 
Hall, ' lacks another story.' In the Palace of Versailles, he saw fresh 
proofs of the selfishness of king-craft, the long-suffering patience 
of nations, and the necessary servility of Art when patronized by 
royalty. He wandered for hours through its innumerable halls, 
encrusted with splendor, till the intervention of a naked ante-room 
was a relief to the eye ; and the ruling idea in picture and statue 
and carving was military glory. " Carriages shattered and overturn- 
ed, animals transfixed by spear- thrusts and writhing in speechless 
agony, men riddled by cannon-shot or pierced by musket-balls, and 
ghastly with coming death; such are the spectacles which the 
more favored and fortunate of the Gallic youth have been called 
for generations to admire and enjoy. The whole collection is, in 
its general eflPect, delusive and mischievous, the purpose being to 
exhibit "War as always glorious, and France as uniformly triumph- 
ant. It is by means like these that the business of shattering knee- 
joints and multiplying orphans is kept in countenance." 

At the Louvre, however, the traveler spent the greater part of 
two days in rapturous contemplation of its wonderful collection of 
paintings. Two days out of eight -the fact is significant. 

Let no man who has spent but three days in a foreign country, 
venture on prophecy with regard to its future. France, at the time 



HIS OPINION OF THE FRENCH. 363 

of Horace Greeley's brief visit, went by the name of Republic, and 
Louis Napoleon was called President. For a sturdy republican 
like Mr. Greeley, it was but natural that one of his first inquiries 
should be, ' Will the Republic stand V It is amusing, now^ to read 
in a letter of his, written on the third day of his residence in Paris, 
the most confident predictions of its stability. " Alike," he says, 
"by its own strength and by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the 
Republic is assured ;" and again, "Time is on the popular side, and 
every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic." And yet 
again, "An open attack by the Autocrat would certainly consolidate 
it; a prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer proldble) 
would have the same effect." "No longer probable." The striking 
events of history have seldom seemed 'probable' a year before they 
occurred. 

Other impressions made upon the mind of the traveler were 
more correct. France, which the English press was daily repre- 
senting as a nation inhabited equally by felons, bankrupts, paupers 
and lunatic^, he found as tranquil and prosperous as England her- 
self. He saw there less plate upon the sideboards of her landlords 
and bankers, but he observed evidences on all hands of general 
though unostentatious thrift. The French he thought intelligent, 
vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane, eager to en- 
joy, but willing that all the world should enjoy with them ; but at 
the same time, they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. 
Paris, the ' paradise of the senses,' contained tens of thousands who 
could die fighting for liberty, but no class who could even compre- 
hend the idea of the temperance pledge ! ! The poor of Paris 
seemed to suffer less than the poor of London ; but in London there 
were ten philanthropic enterprises for one in Paris. In Paris he 
saw none of that abject servility in the bearing of the poor to the 
rich which had excited his disgust and commiseration in London. 
A hundred princes and dukes attract less attention in Paris than 
one in London; for ' Democracy triumphed in the drawing-rooms 
of Paris before it had erected its first barricade in the streets ;' and 
once more the traveler "marvels at the oMiquity of vision, where- 
by any one is enabled, standing in this metropolis, to anticipate the 
subversion of the Republic." " And if," he adds, "passing over 
the mob of generals and politicians-by -trade, the choice of candi- 



364 THREE MONTHS tN EUROPE. 

dates for the next presidential term should fall on some modest and 
unambitious citizen, who has earned a character by quiet probity 
and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope to see his name at the 
head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional overthrow of Uni- 
versal Suffrage.'' Thus he thought that France, fickle, glory-loving 
France, would do in 1852, what he only hoped America would be 
capable of some time before the year 1900 ; that is, ' elect something 
else than Generals to the presidency.' 

Away to Lyons on the sixteenth of June. To an impetuous trav- 
eler like Horace Greeley, the tedious formalities of the European 
railroads were sufficiently irritating ; but the " passport nuisance " 
was disgusting almost beyond endurance. One of the very few 
anecdotes which he found time to tell in his letters to the Tribune, 
occurs in connection with his remarks upon this subject. " Every 
one in Paris who lodges a stranger must see forthwith that he has 
a passport in good condition, in default of which said host is liable 
to a penalty. Now, two Americans, when applied to, produced 
passports in due form, but the professions set forth therein were not 
transparent to the landlord's apprehension. One of them was duly 
designated in his passport as a ' loafer^ the other as a ' rowdy ^ and 
they informed him, on application, that though these professions 
were highly popular in America and extensively followed, they 
knew no French synonyms into which they could be translated. The 
landlord, not content with the sign manual of Daniel Webster, affirm- 
ing that all was right, applied to an American friend for a translation 
of the inexplicable professions, but I am not sure that he has even 
yet been fully enlightened with regard to them." He thought that 
three days' endurance of the passport system as it exists on the con- 
tinent of Europe would send any American citizen home with his 
love of liberty and country kindled to a blaze of enthusiasm. 

On the long railroad ride to Lyons, the traveler was half stifled 
with the tobacco smoke in the cars. His companions were all 
Frenchmen and all smokers, who " kept puff-puffing, through the 
day ; first all of them, then three, two, and at all events one, till 
they all got out at Dijon near nightfall; when, before I had time 
to congratulate myself on the atmospheric improvement, another 
Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and went at it. All this was in 
direct and flagrant violation of the rules posted up in the ca*- : 



JOURNEY TO ITALY. 365 

but when did a smolier ever care for law or decency ?" However, 
ho flattened his nose diligently against the car windows, and spied 
what he could of the crops, the culture, the houses and the people 
of the country. He discovered that a Yankee could mow twice 
as much grass in a day as a Frenchman, but not get as much from 
each acre ; that the women did more than half the work cf the 
farms ; that the agricultural implements w^ere primitive, and rude, 
the hay-carts " wretchedly small ;" that the farm-houses were low 
small, steep-roofed, huddled together, and not worth a hundred dol- 
lars each; that fruit-trees were deplorably scarce; and that the 
stalls and stables for the cattle were ' visible only to the eye of 
faith.' He reached Chalours on the Saone, at nine in the evening ; 
and Lyons per steamboat in the afternoon of the next day. Lyons, 
the capital of the silk-trade, furnished him, as might have been an- 
ticipated, with an excellent text for a letter on Protection, in which 
he endeavored to prove that it is not best for mankind that one 
hundred thousand silk-workers should be clustered on any square 
mile or two of earth. 

The traveler's next ride was across the Alps to Turin. The let- 
ter which describes it contains, besides the usual remarks upon 
wheat, grass, fruit-trees and bad farming, one slight addition to our 
stock of personal anecdotes. The diligence had stopped at Cham- 
bery, the capital of Savoy, for breakfast. 

" There was enough," he writes, " and good enough to eat, wine in abun- 
dance without charge, but tea, coffee, or chocolate, must be ordered and paid 
for extra. Yet I was unable to obtain a cup of chocolate, the excuse being 
that there was not time to make it. I did not understand, therefore, why I 
was charged more than others for breakfast; but to talk English against 
French or Italian is to get a mile behind in no time, so I pocketed the change 
offered me and came away. On the coach, however, with an Englishman near 
me who had traveled this way before and spoke French and Italian, I ven- 
tured to expose my ignorance as follows : 

" ' Neighbor, why was I charged three francs for breakfast, and the rest of 
you but two and a half V 

" ' Don't know — perhaps you had tea or coffee.' 

" ' No, sir — don't drink either.' 

" ' Then perhaps you washed your face and hands.' 

" ' Well, it would be just like me.' 

" ' 0, then, that 's it ! The half franc was for the basin and towel.' 

" ' Ah, oui, ouV So the milk in that cocoanut was accounted for." 



366 THREE MONTHS *IN EUROPE. 

Anecdotes are precious for biographical purposes. This is a 
little stoi-y, but the reader may infer from it something respecting 
Horace Greeley's manners, habits, and character. The morn- 
ing of June the twentieth found the diligence rumbhng over 
the beautiful plain of Piedmont towards Turin. Horace Greeley 
was in Italy. One of tlie first observations which he made in that 
enchantmg country was, that he had never seen a region where a 
few sub-soil ploiDS, with men qualified to use and explain them, were 
so much wanted ! Eefreshing remark ! The sky of Italy had been 
overdone. At length, a traveler crossed the Alps who had an eye 
for the necessities of the soil. 

Mr. Greeley spent twenty-one days in Italy, paying flying visits 
to Turin, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Padua, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and 
passing about a week in Rome. At Genoa, he remarked that the 
kingdom of Sardinia, which contains a population of only four mill- 
ions, maintains sixty thousand priests, but not five thousand teach- 
ers of elementary knowledge ; and that, while the churches of Ge- 
noa are worth four millions of dollars, the school-houses would not 
bring fifty tliousand. " The black-coated gentry fairly overshadow 
the land with their shovel-hats, so that corn has no ciiance of sun- 
shine." Pisa, too, could aflTord to spend a hundred thousand dol- 
lars in fireworks to celebrate the anniversary of its patron saint ; 
but can spare nothing for popular education. At Florence, the trav- 
veler passed some agreeable hours with Hiram Powers, felt that his 
Greek Slave and Fisher Boy were not the loftiest achievements of 
that artist, defied antiquity to surpass his Proserpine and Psyche, 
and predicted that Powers, unlike Alexander, has realms still to 
conquer, and will fulfil his destiny. At Bologna the most notable 
thing he saw was an awning spread over the centre of the main 
street for a distance of half a mile, and he thought the idea might 
be worth borrowing. On entering Venice his carpet-bags were 
searched for tobacco ; and be remarks, that when any tide-waiter 
finds more of that noxious weed about him than the chronic ill- 
breediug of smokers compels him to carry in his clothes, he is wel- 
come to confiscate all his worldly possessions. Before reaching 
Venice, another diligence -incident occurred, which the traveler may 
be permitted himself to relate 



A NAP IN THE DILIGENCE. 367 

"As midnight drew on," ho writes, " I grew weary of gazing at the same 
endless diversity of grain-fields, vineyards, rows of trees, Ac, though the 
bright moon was now shining ; and, shutting out the chill night-aii, I disposed 
myself on my old great-coat and softest carpet-bag for a drowse, having ample 
room at my command if I could but have brought it into a straight line. But 
the road was hard, the coach a little the uneasiest I ever hardened my bones 
upon, and my slumber was of a disturbed and dubious character, a dim sense 
of physical discomfort shaping and coloring my incoherent and fitful visions. 
For a time I fancied myself held down on my back while some malevolent 
wretch drenched the floor (and me) with filthy water ; then I was in a rude 
scuffle, and came out third or fourth best, with my clothes badly torn ; anon I 
had lost my hat in a strange place, and could not begin to find it ; and at last 
my clothes were full of grasshoppers and spiders, who were beguiling their 
leisure by biting and stinging me. The misery at last became unbearable and 
I awoke. But where ? I was plainly in a tight, dark box that needed more 
air ; I soon recollected that it was a stage-coach, wherein I had been making 
my way from Ferrara to Padua. I threw open the door and looked out. 
Horses, postilions, and guard were all gone ; the moon, the fields, the road 
were gone : I was in a close court-yard, alone with Night and Silence ; but 
where 1 A church clock struck three ; but it was only promisecf ■ that we 
should reach Padua by four, and I, making the usual discount on such prom- 
ises, had set down five as the probable hour of our arrival. I got out to take 
a more deliberate survey, and the tall form and bright bayonet of an Austrian 
sentinel, standing guard over the egress of the court-yard, were before me. 
To talk German was beyond the sweep of my dizziest ambition, but an Italian 
runner or porter instantly presented himself. From him I made out that I 
was in Padua of ancient and learned renown (Italian Fadova), and that the 
first train for Venice would not start for three hours yet. I followed him into 
a convenient cafe, which was all open and well lighted, where I ordered a cup 
of chocolate, and proceeded leisurely to discuss it. When I had finished, the 
other guests had all gone out, but daylight was coming in, and I began to feel 
more at home. The cafe tender was asleep in his chair ; the porter had gone 
off ; the sentinel alone kept awake on his post. Soon the welcome face of the 
coach-guard, whom I had borne company from Bologna, appeared ; I hailed 
him, obtained my baggage, hired a porter, and, having nothing more to wait 
for, started at a little past four for the Railroad station, nearly a mile dis- 
tant ; taking observations as I went. Arrived at the depot, I discharged my 
porter, sat down and waited for the place to open, with ample leisure for re- 
flection. At six o'clock I felt once more the welcome motion of a railroad car, 
and at eight was in Venice.'^ 

At Venice, amid a thousand signs of decay, hoBsaw one, and only 
OPe, indication of progress. It was a gondola with the word Om- 



368 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. 

NiBus written upon it ; and the omnibus, he remarks, typifies Asso- 
ciation, the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is destined to 
renovate the world of industry and production, substituting abun- 
dance and comfort for penury and misery. For Man, he thought, 
this quickening word is yet seasonable ; for Venice, it is too late. 

Rome our hurrying traveler reached through much tribulation. 
Even Ms patience gave way when the petty and numberless ex- 
actions of passport officials, hotel runners, postilions, and porters, 
had wrung the last copper from his pocket. After he and his fel- 
low-passengers had paid every conceivable demand, when they 
supposed they had bought off every enemy, and had nothing to do 
but drive quietly into the city, " our postilioUj" says the indignant 
traveler, " came down upon us for more money for taking us to a 
hotel ; and as we could do no better, we agreed to give him four 
francs to set down four of us (all the Americans and English he 
had) at one hotel. He drove by the Diligence Office, however, and 
there three or four rough customers jumped unbidden on the Vfe- 
hicle, and, when we reached our hotel, made themselves busy with 
our little luggage, which we would have thanked them to let alone. 
Having obtained it, we settled with the postilion, who grumbled 
and scolded, though we paid him more than his four francs. Then 
came the leader of our volunteer aids, to be paid for taking down 
the luggage. I had not a penny of change left, but others of our 
company scraped their pockets of a handful of coppers, which the 
'-facchinV rejected with scorn, throwing them after us up stau-s (I 
hope they did not pick them up afterwards), and I heard their im- 
precations until I had reached my room, but a blessed ignorance of 
Italian shielded me from any insult in the premises. Soon my two 
light carpet-bags, which I was not allowed to carry, came up with 
a fresh demand for porterage. ' Don't you belong to the hotel V 
'Yes.' 'Then vanish instantly!' I shut the door in his face, 
and let him growl to his heart's content ; and thus closed my first 
day in the more especial dominions of His Holiness Pius IX." 

But he was in Rome, and Rome impressed him deeply ; for, in 
the nature of Horace Greeley, the poetical element exists as un- 
deniably as the practical. He has an eye for a picture and a pros- 
pect, as well as for a potato-field and a sub-soil plough. 

The greater part of his week in Rome ivas spent in the galleries 



SCENE IN THE COLISEUM. 3G9 

of art ; and while feasting his eyes with their manifold glories, 
practical suggestions for the diffusion of all that wealth of beauty 
occur to hia mind. It is well, he thought, that there should he 
somewhere in the world an Emporium of the Fine Arts; but not 
well that the heart should absorb all the blood and leave the limbs 
destitute ; and, " if Kome would but consider herself under a mora 
responsibility to impart as well as receive, and would liberally dis- 
pose of so many of her master-pieces as would not at all impover- 
ish her, buying in return such as could be spared her from abroad, 
and would thus enrich her collections by diversifying them, she 
would render the cause of Art a signal service, and earn the grati- 
tude of mankind, without the least prejudice to her own permanent 
well-being." 

Among the Sights of Eome, the Coliseum seems to have made 
the most lasting impression upon the mind of the traveler. He was 
fortunate in the hour of his visit. As he slowly made the circuit 
of the gigantic ruin, a body of French cavalry were exercising their 
horses along the eastern side, while in a neighboring grove the 
rattle of the kettle-drum revealed the presence of infantry. At 
length the horsemen rode slowly away, and the attention of the 
visitors was attracted to some groups of Itahans in the interior, who 
were slowly marching and chanting. 

"We entered," says Mr. Greeley, "and were witnesses of a strange, im- 
pressive ceremony. It is among the traditions of Rome that a great number 
of the early Christians were compelled by their heathen persecutors to fight 
and die here as gladiators, as a punishment for their contumacious, treasonable 
resistance to the ' lower law' then in the ascendant, which the high priests and 
circuit judges of that day were wont in their sermons and charges to demon- 
strate that every one was bound as a law-abiding citizen to obey, no matter 
what might be his private, personal convictions with regard to it. Since the 
Coliseum has been cleared of rubbish, fourteen little oratories or places of 
prayer have been cheaply constructed around its inner circumference, and 
here at certain seasons prayers are offered for the eternal bliss of the martyr- 
ed Christians of the Coliseum. These prayers were being offered on this oc- 
casion. Twenty or thirty men (priests or monks I inferred), partly bare- 
headed, but as many with their heads completely covered by hooded cloaks, 
which left only two small holes for the eyes, accompanied by a large number 
of women, marched slowly and sadly to one oratory, chanting a prayer by the 
way, setting up their lighted tapers by its semblance of an altar, kneeling and 

16* 



370 THREE MONTHS IIJ EUROPE. 

praying for some minutes, then rising and proceeding to the next oratory, and 
60 on until they had repeated the service before every one. They all seemed 
to be of the poorer class, and I presume the ceremony is often repeated or the 
participators would have been much more numerous. The praying was fer- 
vent and I trust excellent, — as the music decidedly was not ; but the whole 
scene, with the setting sun shining redly through the shattered arches and 
upon the ruined wall, with a few French soldiers standing heedlessly by, 
was strangely picturesque, and to me affecting. I came away before it con- 
cluded, to avoid the damp night-air ; but many checkered years and scenes 
of stirring interest must intervene to efface from my memory that sun-sec and 
those strange prayers in the Coliseum." 

St. Peter's, he styles the Niagara of edifices; and, like Niagara, 
the first view of it is disappointing. In the Sistine chapel, he ob- 
served a picture of the Death of Admiral Coligny at the Massacre of 
St. Bartholomew, and if the placing of that picture there was not 
intended to express approbation of the Massacre, he wanted to know 
what is was intended to express. 

The tenth of July was the traveler's last day in Italy. A swif£ 
journey through Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, and North East- 
ern France brought him once more to England. In Switzerland, 
he saw everywhere the signs of frugal thrift and homely content. 
He was assailed by no beggar, cheated by no official ; though, as he 
truly remarks, he was ' tery palpahly a stranger.' A more ' upright, 
kindly, truly religious people ' than the Catholic Swiss, he had never 
seen ; and he thought their superiority to the Itahans attributable 
to their republican institutions ! ! He liked the Germans. Their 
good humor, their kind-heartedness, their deference to each other's 
wishes, their quiet, unostentatious manner, their self-respect, won 
his particular regard. In the main cabins of German steamboats, 
be was gratified to see " well-dressed young ladies take out their 
home-prepared dinner and eat it at their own good time without 
seeking the company and countenance of others, or troubling them- 
eelves to see who was observing. A Lowell factory girl would con- 
sider this entirely out of character, and a New York milliner would 
be shocked at the idea of it." 

Nowhere, he here remarks, had he found Aristocracy a chronic 
disease, except in England. 

"Your Paris boot-black will make you a low bow in acknowl- 
edgment of a franc, but he has not a trace of the abjectness of a 



TO ENGLAND AGAIN. 371 

London waiter, and would evidently decline the honor of being 
kicked by a Duke. In Italy, there is little manhood but no class- 
worship ; her millions of beggars will not abase themselves one 
whit lower before a Prince than before any one else from whom 
they hope to worm a copper. The Swiss are freemen, and wear the 
fact unconsciously but palpably on their brows and beaming from 
their eyes. The Germans submit passively to arbitrary power 
which they see not how successfully to resist, but they render to 
rank or dignity no more homage than is necessary— their souls are 
still free, and their manners evince a simplicity and frankness which 
might shame, or at least instruct America." 

On the twenty-first of July, Horace Greeley was again in Lon- 
don. One incident of his journey from the court to the metropolis 
was suJBBciently ludicrous. There were three Frenchmen and two 
French women in the car, going up to see the Exhibition. " London 
Stoict,^ displayed in tall letters across the front of a tavern, attract- 
,ed the attention of the party. ' Stoot ? Stooi f queried one of 
them ; but the rest were as much in the dark as he, and the Amer- 
ican was as deficient in French as they in English. The befogged 
one pulled out his dictionary and read over and over all the French 
synonyms of ' Stout,' but this only increased his perplexity. ' Stout ' 
signified 'robust,' 'hearty,' 'vigorous,' 'resolute,' &c., but what 
then could '•London Stout' be? He closed his book at length in 
despair and resumed his observations." 

The remaining sixteen days of Mr. Greeley's three months in Eu- 
rope were busy ones indeed. The great Peace Convention was in 
session in London ; but, as he was not a delegate, he took no part 
in its proceedings. If he Jiad been a delegate, he tells us, that he 
should have offered a resolution which would have affirmed^ not 
denied, the right of a nation, wantonly invaded by a foreign army 
or intolerably oppressed by its own rulers, to resist force by force ; 
a proposition which he thought might perhaps have marred the 
* harmony and happiness ' of the Convention. 

A few days after his return to London, he had the very great 
gratification of witnessing the triumph of M'Cormick's Reaping Ma- 
chine, which, as it stood in the Crystal Palace, had excited general 
derision, and been styled ' a cross between an Astley chariot, a fly- 
ing machine, and a tread-mill' It game into the field, therefore, to 



372 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. 

• 

confront a tribunal prepared for its condemnation. "Before it 
stood John Bull, burly, dogged, and determined not to be humbug- 
ged — his judgment made up and his sentence ready to be recorded. 
Nothing disconcerted, the brown, rough, homespun Yankee in 
charge jumped on the box, starting the team at a smart walk, set- 
ting the blades of the machine in lively operation, and commenced 
raking off the grain in sheaf-piles ready for binding, — cutting a 
breadth of nine or ten feet cleanly and carefully as fast as a span 
of horses could comfortably step. There was a moment, and but a 
moment of suspense; human prejudice could hold out no longer; 
and burst after burst of involuntary cheers from the whole crowd 
proclaimed the triumph of the Yankee ' treadmill.' " 

A rapid tour through the north of England, Scotland, and Ire- 
land absorbed the last week of Mr. Greeley's stay in Europe. The 
grand old town of Edinburgh ^ surpassed his expectations,' and he 
was amused at the passion of the Edinburghers for erecting public 
monuments to eminent men. Glasgow looked to him more like an 
American city than any other he had seen in Europe ; it was half 
Pittsburgh, half Philadelphia. Ireland seemed more desolate, more 
wretched, even in its best parts, than he had expected to find it. 
As an additional proof of his instinctive sense of means and ends, 
take this suggestion for Ireland's deliverance from the pall of igno- 
rance that overspreads it : — " Let the Catholic Bishops unite in an 
earnest and potential call for teachers, and they can summon thou- 
sands and tens of thousands of capable and qualified persons from 
convents, from seminaries, from cloisters, from drawing-rooms, even 
from foreign lands if need be, to devote their time and efforts to the 
work without earthly recompense or any stipulation save for a bare 
subsistence, which the less needy Catholics, or even the more liberal 
Protestants, in every parish, would gladly proffer them." 

Perfectly practicable — perfectly impossible ! The following is the 
only incident of his Irish tour that space can be found for here : — 
" Walking with a friend through one of the back streets of Galway 
beside the outlet of the Lakes, I came where a girl of ten years old 
was breaking up hard brook pebbles into suitable fragments to mend 
roads with. We halted, and M. asked her how much she received 
for that labor. She answered, ' Sixpence a car-load.' ' How long 
will it take you to break a carload ?' ' About a fortnigliL'' " 



HIS OPINION OF THE ENGLISH. 373 

He concluded his brief sketch of this country with the words, 
" Alas ! unhappy Ireland." Yet, on a calmer and fuller survey of 
Ireland's case, and after an enumeration of the various measures for 
her relief and regeneration which were slowly but surely operating, 
he exclaims, " There shall yet be an Ireland to which her sons in 
, distant lands may turn then* eyes with a pride unmingled with sad- 
ness ; but who can say how soon !" 

Mr. Greeley, though he did not ' wholly like those grave and 
stately English,' appreciated highly and commends frankly their 
many good qualities. He praised their industry, their method, their 
economy, their sense of the practical ; sparmg not, however, their 
conceit and arrogance. An English duchess, he remarks, does not 
hesitate to say, ' I cannot afford' a proposed outlay — an avowal rare- 
ly and reluctantly made by an American, even in moderate circum- 
stances. The English he thought a most un-ideal people, even in 
their ' obstreperous loyalty' ; and when the portly and well-to-do 
Briton exclaims, ' God save the Queen,' with intense enthusiasm, he 
means, ' God save my estates, my rents, my shares, my consols, my 
expectations.' He liked the amiable women of England, so excel- 
lent at the fireside, so tame in the drawing-room ; but he doubted 
whether they could so much as com'prehend the ' ideas which under- 
lie the woman's-rights movement.' The English have a sharp eye 
to business, he thought ; particularly the Free Traders. Our cham- 
pion of Protection on this subject remarks : — " The French widow 
who appended to the high- wrought eulogium engraved on her hus- 
band's tombstone, that ' His disconsolate widow still keeps the shop 
Ko. 16 Eue St. Denis,' had not a keener eye to business than tliese 
apostles of the Economic faith. No consideration of time or place 
is regarded ; in festive meetings, peace conventions, or gatherings 
of any kind, where men of various lands and views are notoriously 
congregated, and where no reply could be made without disturbing 
the harmony and distracting the attention of the assemblage, the 
disciples of Oobden are sure to interlard their harangues with ad* 
vice to foreigners substantially thus — ' N. B. Protection is a great 
humbug and a great waste. Better abolish your tariffs, stop your 
factories, and buy at our shops. We're the boys to give you 
thirteen pence for every shilling.' I cannot say how this affected 
others, but to me it seemed hardly more ill-mannered than impolitic.'^ 



874 THREE MONTHS IN EUROPE. 

• 

Yet, the better qualities of the British decidedly preponderate ; 
ftnd he adds, that the quiet comfort and heartfelt warmth of an 
English fireside must be felt to be appreciated. 

On Wednesday, the sixth of August, Horace Greeley was once 
more on board the steamship Baltic, homeward bound. 

"I rejoice," he w^ote on the morning of his departure, "I rejoice to feel 
that every hour, henceforth, must lessen the distance which divides me from 
my country, whose advantages and blessings this four months' absence has 
taught me to appr^-^iate more dearly and to prize more deeply than before. 
With a glow of unwonted rapture I see our stately vessel's prow turned toward 
the setting sun, ar** strive to realize that only some ten days separate me from 
those I know and 'ove best on earth. Hark ! the last gun announces that the 
mail-boat has lef- us, and that we are fairly afloat on our ocean journey ; the 
shores of Europ* recede from our vision ; the watery waste is all around us ; 
and now, with Qod above and Death below, our gallant bark and her clustered 
company top«p«.her brave the dangers of the mighty deep. May Infinite Mercy 
watch over owr onward path and bring us safely to our several homes ; for to 
die away from home and kindred seems one of the saddest calamities that 
could befall me. This mortal tenement would rest uneasily in an ocean 
shroud : this spirit reluctantly resign that tenement to the chill and pitiless 
brine : these eyes close regretfully on the stranger skies and bleak inhospital- 
ity of the sullen and stormy main. No ! let me see once more the scenes so 
well remembered and b loved ; let me grasp, if but once again, the hand of 
Friendship, and hear the thrilling accents of proved Affection, and when sooner 
or later the hour of mortal agony shall come, let my last gaze be fixed on eyes 
that will not forget me when I am gone, and let my ashes repose in that con- 
genial soil which, however I may there be esteemed or Hated, is still ' My own 
green land forever !' " 

Neptune was more gracious to the voyager on his homeward than 
he had been on his outward passage. The skies were clearer, the 
winds more favorable and gentler. A few days, not intolerably dis- 
agreeable, landed him on the shores of Manhattan. The ship reached 
the wharf about six o'clock in the morning, cheating the expectant 
morning papers of their foreign news, which the editor of the Tri- 
bune had already ' made up' for publication on board the steamer. 
However, he had no sooner got on shore than he rushed away to 
the oflBce, bent on getting out an ' extra' in advance of all contempo- 
raries. The compositors were all absent, of course ; but boys were 
forthwith dispatched to summon them fivm bed and breakfiist. Mean- 



RECENTLY. 375 

yehile, the impetuons Editor-in-Chief proceeded iDith his own hands 
to set the matter in type, and continued to assist till the form was 
ready to be lowered away to the press-room in the basement. In 
an hour or two the streets resounded with the cry, "Extra Try- 
bune ; 'yival of the BaUzc." Then, but not till then, Horace Gree- 
ley might have been seen in a corner of an omnibus, going slowly 
up town, towards his residence in Nineteenth street. 



CHAPTER XXYII. 

RECENTLY. 

Deliverance from Party— A Private Platform— Last Interview with Henry Clay— Horace 
Greeley a Farmer — He irrigates and drains — His Advice to a Young Man — Tha 
Daily Times — A costly Rlistake — Thie Isms of the Tribune — Tlie Tribune gets 
Glory— The Tribune in Parliament— Proposed Nomination for Governor— His Life 
written — A Judge's Daughter for Bale. 

DuEiNG the first eight or nine volumes of the Tribune, the history 
of that newspaper and the life of Horace Greeley were one and the 
same thing. But the time has passed, and passed forever, when a 
New York morning paper can be the vehicle of a single mind. 
Since the year 1850, when the Tribune came upon the town as a 
double sheet nearly twice its original size, its affairs have had n, me- 
tropolitan complexity and extensiveness, and Horace Greeley has 
run through it only as the original stream courses its way through 
a river swollen and expanded by many tributaries. The quaffing 
traveler cannot tell, as he rises from the shore refreshed, whether 
he has been drinking Hudson, or Mohawk, or Hoodna, or two of 
them mingled, or one of the hundred rivulets that trickle into the 
ample stream upon which fleets and ' palaces' securely ride. Some 
wayfarers thinJc they can, but they cannot; and their erroneous 
guesses are among the amusements of the tributary corps. Occa- 
sionally, however, the original Greeley flavor is recognizable to the 
dullest palate. 

The most important recent event in the history of the Tribune 



376 RECENTLY. 

occurred in November, 1852, when, on the defeat of General Scott 
and the annihilation of the "Whig party, it ceased to be a party 
paper, and its editor ceased to be a party man. And this blessea 
emancipation, with its effect upon the press of the country, was 
worth that disaster. We never had great newspapers in this coun- 
try while our leading papers gave allegiance to party, and never 
could have had. A great newspaper must be above everything and 
everybody. Its independence must be absolute, and then its power 
will be as nearly so as it ought to be. 

' It was fit that the last triumph of party should be its greatest, and 
that triumph was secured when it enlisted such a man as Horace 
Greeley as the special and head champion of a man like General 
Scott. But as a j^t^rtisan, what other choice had he ? To use his 
own language, he supported Scott and Graham, because, 

" 1. They can be elected, and the others can't. 

" 2. They are openly and thoroughly for Protection to Home Industry, 
while the others, (judged by their supporters,) lean to Free Trade. 

" 3. Scott and Graham are backed by the general support of those who hold 
with us, that government may and should do much positive good." 

At the same time he ' spat upon the (Baltimore compromise, pro- 
fugitive law) platform,' and in its place, gave one of his own. As 
this private platform is the most condensed and characteristic state- 
ment of Horace Greeley's political opinions that I have seen, it may 
properly be printed here. 

OUR PLATE OEM. 

" I. As to the Tariff: — Duties on Imports — specific so far as practicable, af- 
fording ample protection to undeveloped or peculiarly exposed branches of 
our National Industry, and adequate revenue for the support of the govern- 
ment and the payment of its debts. Low duties, as a general rule, on rude, 
bulky staples, whereof the cost of transportation is of itself equivalent to a 
heavy impost, and high duties on such fabrics, wares, &c., as come into de- 
pressing competition with our own depressed infantile or endangered pursuits. 

" II. As to National Works : — Liberal appropriations yearly for the improve- 
ment of rivers and harbors, and such eminently national enterprises as the 
Saut St. Marie canal and the Pacific railroad from the Mississippi. Cut down 
the expenditures for forts, ships, troops and warlike enginery of all kinds, and 
add largely to those for works which do not ' perish in the using,' but will re- 



A PRIVATE PLATFORM. 377 

main for ages to benefit our people, strengthen the Union, and concribute far 
more to the national defense than the costly machinery of war ever could. 

" III. As to Foreign Pulicy : — ' Do unto others [the weak and oppressed 
as well as the powerful and mighty] as we would have them do unto us.' 
Ko shuffling, no evasion of duties nor shirking responsibilities, but a firm 
front to despots, a prompt rebuke to every outrage on the law of Nations, and 
a generous, active sympathy with the victims of tyranny and usurpation. 

" IV. As to Slavery : — No interference by Congress with its existence in any 
slave State, but a firm and vigilant resistance to its legalization in any national 
Territory, or the acquisition of any foreign Territory wherein slavery may ex- 
ist. A perpetual protest against the hunting of fugitive slaves in free States 
as an irresistible cause of agitation, ill feeling and alienation between the 
North and the South. A firm, earnest, inflexible testimony, in common with 
the whole non-slaveholding Christian world, that human slavery, though le- 
gally protected, is morally wrong, and ought to be speedily terminated. 

" V. As to State rights: — More regard for and less cant about them. 

" VI. One Presidential Teem, and no man a candidate for any office while 
wielding the vast patronage of the national executive. 

" VII. Reform in Congress : — Payment by the session, with a rigorous de- 
duction for each day's absence, and a reduction and straightening of mileage. 
We would suggest S2,000 compensation for the first (or long), and $1,000 for 
the second (or short) session ; with ten cents per mile for traveling (by a bee- 
line) to and from Washington." 

The Tribune fought gallantly for Scott, and made no wry faces at 
the ' brogue,' or any other of the peculiarities of the candidate's 
stump efforts. When the sorry fight was over, the Tribune submit- 
ted with its usual good humor, spoke jocularly of the ' late whig 
party,' declared its independence of party organizations for the fu- 
ture, and avowed its continued adhesion to all the principles which 
it had hoped to promote by battling with the whigs. It would still 
war with the aggressions of the slave power, still strive for free 
homesteads, still denounce the fillibusters, and still argue for the 
Maine Law. 

" ' Doctor," said a querulous, suffering invalid who had paid a good deal of 
money for physic to little apparent purpose, "you don't seem to reach the 
seat of my disease. Why don't you strike at the seat of my disorder 7" 

" ' Well, I will," was the prompt reply, " if you insist on it ;" and, lifting 
his cane, he smashed the brandy bottle on the sideboard.' " 

And thus ended the long connection of the New York Tribune 

with the whig party. 



378 RECENT»T. 

In the summer of 1852, ITorace Greeley performed the melan- 
choly duty of finisliing Sargent's Life of Henry Clay. He added 
little, however, to Mr. Sargent's narrative, except the proceedings 
of Congress on the occasion of Mr. Clay's death and funeral. One 
paragraph, descriptive of the last interview between the • dying 
statesman and the editor of the Tribune, claims insertion: 

"Learning from others," says Mr. Greeley, "how ill and feeble he 
was, I had not intended to call upon him, and remained two days 
under the same roof without asking permission to do so. Mean- 
time, however, he was casually informed of my being in Washing- 
ton, and sent me a request to call at his room. I did so, and enjoyed 
a half hour's free and friendly conversation with him, the saddest 
and the last ! His state was even worse than I feared ; he was 
already emaciated, a prey to a severe and distressing cough, and 
complained of spells of difficult breathing. I think no physician 
could have judged him likely to live two months longer. Yet his 
mind was unclouded and brilliant as ever, his aspirations for his 
country's welfare as ardent; and, though all personal ambition had 
long been banished, his interest in the events and impulses of the 
day was nowise diminished. He listened attentively to all I had 
to say of the repulsive aspects and revolting features of the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law and the necessary tendency of its operation to ex- 
cite hostility and alienation on the part of our IsTorthern people, 
unaccustomed to Slavery, and seeing it exemplified only in the 
brutal arrest and imprisonment of some humble and inoffensive 
negro whom tliey h^id learned to regard as a neighbor. I think I 
may without impropriety say that Mr. Clay regretted that more 
care had not been taken in its passage to divest this act of features 
needlessly repulsive to Northern sentiment, though he did not deem 
any change in its provisions now practicable." 

A strange, but not inexplicable, fondness existed in the bosom of 
Horace Greeley for the aspiring chieftain of the Whig party. Very 
masculine men, men of complete physical development, the gallant, 
the graceful, the daring, often enjoy the sincere homage of souls 
superior to their o^^^l ; because such are apt to place an extravagant^ 
value upon the shining qualities which they do not possess. From 
Webster, the great over-Praised, the false god of cold New Eng- 



HORACE GREELEY A FARMER. 379 

land, Horace Greeley seems ever to have shrunk with an instinc- 
tive aversion. 

As he lost his interest in party politics, his mind reverted to the 
soil. He yearned for the repose and tlie calm delights of country 
life. 

"As for me," h( said, at the conchvsion of an address before the 
Indiana State Agricultural Society, delivered in October, 1853, "as 
for me, long- tossed on the stormiest waves of doubtful conflict and 
arduous endeavor, I have begun to feel, since the sliades of forty 
years fell upon me, the weary, tempest-driven voyager's longing for 
land, the wanderer's yearning for the hamlet where in childhood he 
nestled by his mother's knee, and was soothed to sleep on hev 
breast. The sober down-hill of life dispels many illusions, while it 
developes or strengthens within us the attachment, perhaps long 
smothered or overlaid, for 'that dear hut, our home.' And so I, in 
the sober afternoon of life, when its sun, if not high, is still warm, 
have bought a few acres of land in the broad, still country, and, 
bearing thither my household treasures, have resolved to steal from 
the City's labors and anxieties at least one day in each week, wherein 
to revive as a farmer the memories of my childhood's humble 
home. And already I realize that the experiment cannot cost so 
much as it is worth. Already I find in that day's quiet an anti- 
dote and a solace for the feverish, festering cares of the weeks which 
environ it. Already my brook murmurs a soothing even-song to 
my burning, throbbing brain ; and my trees, gently stirred by the 
fresh breezes, whisper to my spirit something of their own quiet 
strength and patient trust in God. And thus do I faintly realize, 
though but for a brief and flitting day, the serene joy which sliall 
irradiate the Farmer's vocation, when a fuller and truer Education 
shall have refined and chastened his animal cravings, and when 
Science shall have endowed him with her treasures, redeeming La- 
bor from drudgery while quadrupling its efficiency, and crowning 
with beauty and plenty our bounteous, beneficent Earth." 

The portion of the 'broad, still country' alluded to in this elo- 
quent passage, is a farm of fifty acres in Westchester county, near 
Newcastle, close te the Harlem railroad, thirty-four miles from the 
city of New York. Thither the tired editor repairs every Saturday 
morning by an early train, and there he remains directing and as- 



380 RECEN'fty. 

sisting in the labors of the farm for that Bingle day only, retnrning 
early enough on Sunday to hear the flowing rhetoric of Mr. Cha- 
pin's morning sermon. From church — to the office and to work. 

This farm has seen marvellous things done on it during the three 
years of Mr. Greeley's ownership. "What it was when he bought it 
may be partly inferred from another passage of the same address : 
" I once went to look at a farm of fifty acres that I thought of buy- 
ing for a summer home, some forty miles from the city of New 
York. The owner had been born on it, as I believe had his father 
before him ; but it yielded only a meager subsistence for his family, 
and he thought of selling and going "West. I went over it with him 
late in June, passing through a well-filled barn-yard which had not 
been disturbed that season, and stepping thence into a corn-field of 
five acres, with a hke field of potatoes just beyond it. 'Why, 
neighbor!' asked I, in astonishment, 'how could you leave all this 
manure so handy to your plowed land, and plant ten acres without 
any?' '0,1 was sick a good part of the spring, and so hurried 
that I could not find time to haul it out.' ' Why, suppose you had 
planted but five acres in all, and emptied your barn-yard on those 
five, leaving the residue untouched, don't you think you would 
have harvested a larger crop V ' Well, perhaps I should,' was the 
poor farmer's response. It seemed never before to have occurred to 
him that he could let alone a part of his land. Had he progressed 
so far, he might have ventured thence to the conclusion that it is 
less expensive and more profitable to raise a full crop on five acres 
than half a crop on ten. I am sorry to say we have a good many 
such farmers still left at the East." But, he might have added, 
Horace Greeley is not one of them. He did not, however, and the 
deficiency shall here be supplied. 

The farm is at present a practical commentary upon the oft- 
re|3eated recommendations of the Tribune with regard to ' high 
farming.' It consisted, three years ago. of grove, bog, and exhaust- 
ed upland, in nearly equal proportions. In the grove, which is a 
fine growth of hickory, hemlock, iron- wood and oak, a small white 
cottage is concealed, built by Mr. Greeley, at a cost of a few hun- 
dred dollars. The farm-buildings, far more costly and expensive, 
are at the foot of the hill on which the house stands, and around 
them are the gardens. The marshy land, which Was formerly very 



HE IRRIGATES AND DRAINS. 381 

wet, -^ery boggy, and quite useless, lias been drained by a system 
of ditches and tiles ; the bogs have been pared off and burnt, the 
lano. plowed and planted, and made exceedingly productive. The 
upland has been prepared for irrigation, the water being supplied 
by a brook, which tumbled down the hill through a deep glen. Its 
course was arrested by a dam, and from the reservoir thus formed, 
pipes are laid to the different fields, which can be inundated or 
drained by the turning of a cock. The experiment of irrigation, 
however, has been suspended. Last spring the brook, swollen with 
rage at the loss of its ancient liberty, burst through the dam, and 
scattered four thousand dollai's worth of solid masonry in the space 
of a minute and a half. Tiiis year a new attempt will be made to 
reduce it to submission, and conduct its waters in peaceful and fer- 
tilizing rivulets down the rows of corn and potatoes. Then Mr. 
Greeley can take down his weather-cock, and smile in the midst 
of drought, water his crops with less trouble than he can water his 
horses, and sow turnips in July, regardless of the clouds. If a crop 
is well put in the ground, and well cared for as it progresses, its 
perfect success depends upon two things, water and sunshine. 
Science has enabled the farmer partly to regulate the supply of the 
latter, and perfectly to regulate the supply of the former. The 
slant of the hills, the reflection of walls, glass covers, trees, awn- 
ings, and other contrivances, may be made to concentrate or ward 
off the rays of the sun. Irrigation and drainage go far ta complete 
the farmer's independence of the wayward weather. In all the 
operations of his little farm, Mr. Greeley takes the liveliest interest, 
and he means to astonish his neighbors with some wonderful crops, 
by-and-bye, when he has everything in training. Indeed, he may 
have done so already ; as, in the list of prizes awarded at our last 
Agricultural State Fair, held in New York, October, 1854, w^ read, 
under the head of ' vegetables,' these two items: — "Turnips, H. 
Greeley, Chappaqua, Westchester Co., Two Dollars," (the second 
prize) ; " Twelve second-best ears of White Seed Corn, H. Greeley, 
Two Dollars." Looking down over the reclaimed swamp, all bright 
now with waving flax, he said one day, "All else that I have done 
may be of no avail ; but what I have done here is done ; it will last." 
A private letter, written about this time, appeared in the country 
papers, and still emerges occasionally. A young man wrote ^o Mr. 



382 RECENfLT. 

Greeley, requesting his advice upon a project of going to college 
and studying law. The reply was as follows : 

•' My Deae Sir, — Had you asked me whether I would advise you to desert 
agriculture for law, I should have answered no ! very decidedly. There 13 
already a superabundance of lawyers, coupled with a great scarcity of good 
farmers. Why carry your coals to Newcastle 1 

*' As to a collegiate education, my own lack of it probably disqualifies me 
to appreciate it fully ; but I think you might better be learning to fiddle. 
And if you are without means, I would advise you to hire ten acres of good 
land, work ten hours a day on it, for five days each week, and devote all your 
spare hours to reading and study, especially to the study of agricultural 
sciences, and thus ' owe no man anything,' while you receive a thorough 
practical education. Such is not the advice you seek ; nevertheless, I remain 
yours, , Horace Greeley." 

This letter may serve as a specimen of hundreds of similar ones. 
Probably there never lived a man to whom so many perplexed in- 
dividuals applied for advice and aid, as to Horace Greeley. He 
might with great advantage have taken a liint from the practice of 
Field Marshal the Duke of "Wellington, who, it is said, had forms 
of reply printed, which he filled up and dispatched to anxious cor- 
respondents, with commendable promptitude. From facts which I 
have observed, and from others of which I have heard, I think it 
safe to say, that Horace Greeley receives, on an average, five appli- 
cations dqily for advice and assistance. His advice he gives very 
freely, but the wealth of Astor would not suffice to answer all his 
begging letters in the way the writers of them desire. 

In the fall of 1852, the Daily Times was started by Mr. H. J. 
Kaymond, an event which gave an impetus to the daily press of the 
city. The success of the Times was signal and immediate, for three 
reasoiip: 1, it was conducted with tact, industry and prudence; 
2, it was not the Herald ; 3, it was not the Tribune. Before the 
Times appeared, the Tribune and Herald shared the cream of the 
daily paper business between them ; but there was a large class 
who disliked the Tribune's principles and the Herald's want of 
principle. The majority of people take a daily paper solely to as- 
certain what is going on in the world. They are averse to profli- 
gacy and time-serving, and jet are offended at the independent 
avowal of ideas in advance of their own. And though Horace 



A COSTLY MISTAKE. 383 

Greeley is not the least conservative of men, yet, from his practice 
of giving every new thought and every new man a heaiing in tlie 
columns of his paper, unthinking persons received the imprebsion 
that lie was an advocate of every new idea, and a champion of every 
new man. They thought the Tribune was an unsafe, disorganizing 
paper. " An excellent paper," said they, " and honest, but then it 's 
60 full of isms /" The Times stepped in with a complaisant bow^ 
and won over twenty thousand of the ism-hating class in a single 
year, and yet without reducing the circulation of either of its elder 
rivals. Where those twenty thousand subscribers came from is one 
of the mysteries of journalism. 

In the spring of 1853 the Tribune signalized its ' entrance into 
its teens' by making a very costly mistake. It enlarged its borders 
to such an extent that the price of subscription did not quite cover 
the cost of the white paper upon which it was printed, thus throw- 
ing the burden of its support upon the advertiser. And this, too, 
in the face of the fact that the Tribune, though the best vehicle of 
advertising then in existence, was in least favor among the class 
whose advertising is the most profitable. Yet it was natural for 
Horace Greeley to commit an error of this kind. Years ago he had 
written, " Better a dinner of herbs with a large circulation than a 
stalled ox with a small one." And, in announcing the enlargement, 
he said, " We are confessedly ambitious to make the Tribune the 
leading journal of America, and have dared and done somewhat to 
that end." 

How much he ' dared' in the case of this enlargement may be in- 
ferred from the fact that it involved an addition of $1,044 to the 
weekly, $54,329 to tlie annual, expenses of the concern. Yet he 
' dared' not add a cent to the price of the paper, which it is thought 
he might have done with perfect safety, because those who like the 
Tribune like it very much, and will have it at any price. Men have 
been heard to talk of their Bible, their Shakspeare, and their Tri- 
bune, as the three necessities of their spiritual life; while those 
who dislike it, dislike it excessively, and are wont to protest that 
they should deem their houses defiled by itspresence. The Tribune, 
however, stepped bravely oi|t under its self-imposed load of white 
paper. In one year the circulation of the Daily increased from 
17,640 to 26,880, the Semi- Weekly from 3,120 to 11,400, the Week- 



384 RECENfLY. 

ly from 51,000 to 103,680, the California Tribune from 2,800 to 
3,500, and the receipts of the office increased $70,900. The profits, 
however, were inadequate to reward suitably the exertions of 
its proprietors, and recently the paper was slightly reduced in 
size. 

The enlargement called public attention to the career and the 
merits of the Tribune in a remarkable manner. The press gener- 
ally applauded its spirit, ability and courage, but deplored its isms, 
which gave rise to a set article in the Tribune on the subject of isms. 
This is the substance of the Tribune's opinions of isms and ismists. 
It is worth considering : 

" A very natural division of mankind is that wWcli contemplates them in 
two classes— those Avho think for themselves, and those who have their think- 
ing done by others, dead or living. With the former class, the paramount 
consideration is — ' What is right ?' With the latter, the first inquiry is — 
' What do the majority, or the great, or the pious, or the fashionable think 
about it 1 Uow did our fathers regard it 1 What will Mrs. Grundy say V 

" And truly, if the life were not more than meat — if its chief ends were 
wealth, station and luxury— then the smooth and.plausible gentlemen who as- 
sent to whatever is popular without inquiring or caring whether it is essential- 
ly true or false, are the Solomons of their generation. 

" Yet in a world so full as this is of wrong and suffering, of oppression and 
degradation, there must be radical causes for so many and so vast practical 
evils. It cannot be that the ideas, beliefs, institutions, usages, prejudices, 
•whereof such gigantic miseries are born — wherewith at least they co-exist — 
transcend leriticism and rightfully refuse scrutiny. It cannot be that the 
springs are pure whence flow such turbid and poisonous currents. 

" Now the Reformer — the man who thinks for himself and acts as his own 
judgment and conscience dictate — is very likely to form erroneous opinions. 
* * * But Time will confirm and establish his good works and gently 
amend his mistakes. The detected error dies ; the misconceived and rejected 
truth is but temporarily obscured and soon vindicates its claim to general ac- 
ceptance and regard. 

" * The world does move,' and its motive power, under God, is the fearless 
thought and speech of those who dare be in advance of their time — who are 
sneered at and shunned through their days of struggle and of trial as luna- 
tics, dreamers, impracticables and visionaries — men of crotchets, of vagaries, 
or of ' isms.' These are the masts and sai!s of the ship, to which Conser- 
vatism answers as ballast. The ballast is important — at times indispensable 
—but it would be of no account if the ship were not bound to go ahead." 



THE TRIBUNE IN PARLIAMENT. 385 

Many papers, however, gave the Tribune its full due of apprecia- 
tion and praise. Two notices which appeared at the time are worth 
copying, at least in part. The Newark Mercury gave it this un- 
equaled and deserved commendation :— " We never knew a man of 
illiberal sentiments^ one mijust to Ms worhnen^ and groveling in his 
aspirations^ wlio lihed the Tribune; ami it is rare to find one with lib- 
eral views who does not admit its claims upon the pubhc regard." 

The St. Joseph Valley Eegister, a paper published at Soutli Bend, 
Indiana, held the following language : 

" The influence of the Tribune upon public opinion is greater even than its 
conductors claim for it. Its Isms, with scarce an exception, though the people 
may reject them at first, yet ripen into strength insensibly. A few years since 
the Tribune commenced the advocacy of the principle of Free Lands for the 
Landless. The first bill upon that subject, presented by Mr. Greeley to Con- 
gress, was hooted out of that body. But who doubts what the result would be, 
if the people of the whole nation had the right to vote upon the question to- 
day 1 It struck the first blow in earnest at the corruptions of the Mileage sys- 
tem, and in return, Congressmen of all parties heaped opprobrium upon it, and 
calumny upon its Editor. A corrupt Congress may postpone its Reform, but 
is there any doubt of what nine-tenths of the whole people would accomplish 
on this subject if direct legislation were in their hands ? It has inveighed in 
severe language against the flimsy penalties which the American legislatures 
have imposed for offences upon female virtue. . And how many States, our own 
among the number, have tightened up their legislation upon that subject 
within the last half-dozen years. The blows that it directs against Intemper- 
ance have more power than the combined attacks of half the distinctive Tem- 
perance Journals in the land. It has contended for some plan by which the 
people should choose their Presidents rather than National Conventions ; and 
he must be a careless observer of the progress of events who does not see that 
the Election of 1856 is more likely to be won by a Western Statesman, pledged 
solely to the Pacific Railroad and Honest Government, than by any political 
nominee. And, to conclude, the numerous Industrial Associations of Workers 
to manufacture Iron, Boots and Shoes, Hats, «fcc., on their own account, with 
the Joint Stock Family Blocks of Buildings, so popular now in New York, 
Model Wash-houses, Ac, &c., seem like a faint recognition at least of the main 
principles of Fourierism (whose details we like as little as any one), Op- 
portunity for Work for all, and Economy in the Expenses and Labor of the 
Family." 

From across the Atlantic, also, came compliments for the Tri- 
bune, In one of the debates in the House of Commons upon the 

17 



386 RECENTLY. 

abolition of the advertisement duty, Mr. Bright used a copy of tha 
Tribune, as Burke once did a French Eepublican dagger, for the 
purposes of his argument. Mr. Bright said : 

" He had a newspaper there (the New York Tribune), which he was bound 
to say, was as good as any published in England this week. [The Hon. Mem- 
ber here opened out a copy of the New York Tribune, and exhibited it to the 
House.] It was printed with a finer type than any London daily paper. It 
was exceedingly good as a journal, quite sufficient for all the purposes of a 
newspaper. [Spreading it out before the House, the honorable gentleman de- 
tailed its contents, commencing with very numerous advertisements.] It con- 
tained various articles, amongst others, one against public dinners, in which he 
thought honorable members would fully agree — one criticising our Chancellor 
■"of the Exchequer's budget, in part justly — and one upon the Manchester 
school ; but ho must say, as far as the Manchester school went, it did not do 
them justice at all. [Laughter.] He ventured to say that there -was not a 
better paper than this in London. Moreover, it especially wrote in favor of 
Temperance and Anti-Slavery, and though honorable members were not all 
members of the Temperance Society perhaps, they yet, he was sure, all ad- 
mitted the advantages of Temperance, while not a voice could be lifted there 
in favor of Slavery. Here, then, Avas a newspaper advocating great princi- 
ples, and conducted in all respfects with the greatest propriety — a newspaper 
in which he found not a syllable that he might not put on his table and allow 
his wife and daughter to read with satisfaction. And this was placed on the 
table every morning for Id. [Hear, hear.] What he wanted, then, to ask the 
Government, was this — How comes it, and for what good end, and by what 
contrivance of fiscal oppression — for it can be nothing else — was it, that while 
the workman of New York could have such a paper on his breakfast table 
every morning for Id., the workman of London must go without or pay five- 
pence for the accommodation ? [Hear, hear.] How was it possible that the 
latter could keep up with his transatlantic competitor in the race, if one had 
daily intelligence of everything that was stirring in the world, while the other 
was kept completely in ignorance 1 [Hear, hear.] Were they not running a 
race, in the face of the world, with the people of America ? Were not the 
Collins and Cunard lines calculating their voyages to within sixteen minutes 
of time? And if, while such a race was going on, the one artisan paid five- 
pence for the daily intelligence which the other obtained for a penny, how 
was it possible that the former could keep his place in the international rival- 
ry ^ [Hear, hear.]" 

This visible, tangible, and unanswerable argument had its ejffect. 
The advertisement duty has been abolished, and now only the stamp 
duty intervenes between tire English workingman and his penny 



AN EDITORIAL REPARTEE. 387 

paper — the future Tribune of the English people, which is to ex- 
pound their duties and defend their^ights. 

In the summer of 1854, Mr. Greeley was frequently spoken of in 
the papers in connection with the office of Governor of the State of 
ISTew York. A very little of the usual manoeuvring on his part 
would have secured his norainatif n, and if he had been nominated, 
he would have been elected by a majority that would have surprised 
politicians by trade. 

In 1854, his life was written by a young and unknown scribblei 
for the press, who had observed his career with much interest, and 
who knew enough of the story of his life to be aware, that, if sim- 
ply told, that story would be read with pleasure and do good. 
This volume is the result of his labors. 

Here, this chapter had ended, and it was about to be consigned 
to the hands of the printer. But an event transpires wliich, it is 
urgently suggested, ought to have notice. It is nothing more than 
a new and peculiarly characteristic editorial repartee, or rather, a 
public reply by Mr. Greeley to a private letter. And though the 
force of the reply was greatly, and quite unnecessarily, diminished 
by the publication of the correspondent's name and address, con- 
trary to his request, yet the correspondence seems too interesting 
to be omitted : 

THE LETTER. 

" County, Miss., Sept. 1854. 

•* Hon. Horace Greeley, New York City : 

" My object in addressing you these lines is this : I own a negro girl named 
Catharine, a bright mulatto, aged between twenty-eight and thirty years, 
who is intelligent and beautiful. The girl wishes to obtain her freedom, and 
reside in either Ohio or New York State ; and, to gratify her desire, I am 
willing to take the sum of $1,000, which the friends of liberty will no doubt 
make up. Catharine, as she tells me, was born near Savannah, Ga., and was 
a daughter of a Judge Hopkins, and, at the age of seven years, accompanied 
her young mistress (who was a legitimate daughter of the Judge's) on a visit 
to New Orleans, where she (the legitimate) died. Catharine was then seized 
and sold by the Sheriff of New Orleans, under attachment, to pay the debts 
contracted in the city by her young mistress, and was purchased by a Dutch- 
man named Shinoski. Shinoski, being pleased with the young girl's looks, 
placed her in a quadroon school, and gave her a good education. The girl can 



388 RECENTLY. 

read and write as well or better than myself, and speaks the Dutch and 
French languages almost to perfection. When the girl attained the age of 
eighteen, Shinoski died, and she was again sold, and fell into a trader's hands, 
by the name of John Valentine, a native of your State. Valentine brought 

her up to -, where I purchased her in 1844, for the sura of $1,150. 

Catharine is considered the best seamstress and cook in this county, and I 
could to-morrow sell her for $1,600, but I prefer letting her go for $1,000, so 
that she may obtain her freedom. She has had opportunities to get to a free 
State, aud obtain her freedom ; but she says that she will never run away- to 
do it. Her father, she says, promised to free her, and so did Shinoski. If I was 
able, I would free her without any compensation, but losing $15,000 on the 
last presidential election has taken very near my all. 

"Mr. Geo. D. Prentice, editor of the Louisville (Ky.) Journal, knows mo 
very well by character, to whom (if you wish to make any inquiries regard- 
ing this matter) you are at liberty to refer. 

" If you should make any publication in your paper in relation to this 
matter, you will please not mention my name in connection with it, nor the 
place whence this letter was written. Catharine is honest ; and, for the ten 
years that I have owned her, I never struck her a lick, about her work or 
anything else. 

" If it was not that I intend to emigrate to California, money could not 
buy her. 

" I have given you a complete and accurate statement concerning this girl, 
and am willing that she shall be examined here, or in Louisville, Ky., before 
the bargain is closed. 

" Very respectfully. 

[Name in full.] 

REPLY. 

" Mr. , I have carried your letter of the 28th ult. in my hat for 

several days, awaiting an opportunity to answer it, I now seize the first op- 
portune moment, and, as yours is one of a class with which I am frequently 
favored, I will send you my reply through the Tribune, wishing it regarded 
as a general answer to all such applications. 

" Let me begin by frankly stating that I am not engaged in the slave 
trade, and do not now contemplate embarking in that business ; but no man 
can say confidently what he may or may not become ; and, if I ever should 
engage in the traffic you suggest, it will be but fair to remember you as 
among my prompters to undertake it. Yet even then I must decline any 
such examination as you proffer of the property you wish to dispose of. Your 
biography is so full and precise, so frank and straight-forward, that I prefer 
to rest satisfied with your assurance in the premises. 

" You will see that I have disregarded your request that your name and 
residence should be suppressed by me. That request seems to me inspired by 



A judge's daughter for sale. 389 

a modesty and self-sacrifice unsuited to the Age of Brass we live in. Are 
you not seeking to do a humane and generous act 1 Are you not proposing 
to tax yourself ^600 in order to raise an intelligent, capable, deserving 
woman from slavery to freedom 7 Are you not proposing to do this in a 
manner perfectly lawful and unobjectionable, involving no surrender or com- 
promise of ' Southern Rights' 1 My dear sir ! such virtue must not be allow- 
ed to ' blush unseen.' Our age needs the inspiration of heroic examples, and 
those who would ' do good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame.' must — by gentle 
violence, if need be — stand revealed to an amazed, admiring world. True, it 
might (and might not) have been still more astounding but for your unlucky 
gambling on the late presidential election, wherein it is hard to tell whether 
you who lost your money or those who won their president were most unfortun- 
ate. I affectionately advise you both never to do so again. 

" And now as to this daughter of the late Judge Hopkins of Savannah, 
Georgia, whom you propose to sell me : 

" I cannot now remember that I have ever heard Slavery justified on any 
ground which did not assert or imply that it is the best condition for the negro. 
The blacks, we are daily told, cannot take care of themselves, but sink into 
idleness, debauchery, squalid poverty and utter brutality, the moment the 
master's sustaining rule and care are withdrawn. If this is true, how dare 
you turn this poor dependent, for whose well-being you are responsible, over 
to me, who neither would nor could exert a master's control over her 1 If this 
slave ought not to be set at liberty, why do you ask me to bribe you with 
$1,000 to do her that wrong? If she ought to be, why should I pay you 
$1,000 for doing your duty in the premises'? You hold a peculiar and respon- 
sible relation to her, through your own voluntary act, but / am only related 
to her through Adam, the same as to every Esquimaux, Patagonian, or New- 
Zealander. vV hatever may be your duty in the premises, why should I be 
called on to help you discharge it ? 

" Pull as your account of this girl is, you say nothing of her children, 
though such she undoubtedly has, whether they be also those of her several 
masters, as she was, or their fathers were her fellow-slaves. If she is liber- 
ated and comes North, what is to become of them 1 How is she to be recon- 
ciled to leaving them in slavery 1 How can we be assured that the masters 
wno own or to whom you will sell them before leaving for California, will 
prove as humane and liberal as you are 1 

" You inform me that -' the friends of Liberty ' in New York or hereabout, 
'will no doubt make up' the $1,000 you demand, in order to give this daugh- 
ter of a Georgia Judge her freedom. I think and trust you misapprehend 
them. For though they have, to my certain knowledge, under the impulse of 
special appeals to their sympathies, and in view of peculiar dangers or hard- 
ships, paid a great deal more money than they could comfortably spare (few 
of them being rich) to buy individual slaves out of bondage, yet their judg- 



390 RECENTLY. 

ment has never approved such payment of tribute to man-thieves, ani every 
day's earnest consideration causes it to be regarded with less and less favor. 
For it is not the snatching of here and there a person from Slavery, at the 
possible rate of one for every thousand increase of our slave population, that 
they desire, but the overthrow and extermination ot the slave-holding system; 
and this end, they realize, is rather hindered than helped by their buying 
here and there a slave into freedom. If by so buying ten thousand a year, 
at a cost of Ten Millions of Dollars, they should confirm you and other slave- 
holders in the misconception that Slavery is regarded without abhorrence by 
intelligent Christian freemen at the North, they would be doing great harm 
to their cause and injury to their fellow-Christians in bondage. You may 
have heard, perhaps, of the sentiment proclaimed by Decatur to the slave- 
holders of the Barbary Coast — ' Millions for defense — not a cent for tribute 1' 
— and perhaps also of its counterpart in the Scotch ballad — 

Instead of broad pieces, we 'II pay them broadswords ;'— 

but • the friends of Liberty ' in this quarter will fight her battle neither with 
lead nor steel — much less with gold. Their trust is in the might of Opinion^ 
in the resistless power of Truth where Discussion is untrammeled and Com- 
mercial Intercourse constant — in the growing Humanity of our age — in the 
deepening sense of Common Brotherhood — in the swelling hiss of Christen- 
dom and the just benignity of God. In the earnest faith that these must soon 
eradicate a wrong so gigantic and so palpable as Christian Slavery, they se- 
renely await the auspicious hour which must surely some. 

" Requesting you, Mr. , not to suppress my name in case you see fit 

to reply to this, and to be assured that I write no letter that I am ashamed 
of, I remain, Yours, so-so, 

"HOEACE GeEELEY." 

And here, closing the last volume of the Tribune, the reader is 
invited to a survey of the place whence it was issued, to glance at 
the routine of the daily press, to witness the scene in which our 
hero has labored so long. The Tribune building remains to be ex- 
hibited. 




|MR. GREELEY ANTD MK DANA IX THE EDTTORTAT. Ii<K)MS. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

The streets before daybreak— Waking the newsboys— Morning scene in the press-room 
—The Compositor's room— The four Phalanxes— The Tribune Directory— A lull in 
the Tribune office— A glance at the paper— The advertisements— Telegraphic mar- 
vels-Marine Intelligence — New Publications— Letters from the people— Editorial 
articles— The editorial Rooms— The Sanctum Sanctorum— Solon Robinson— Bay- 
ard Taylor— William Henry Fry— George Ripley— Charles A. Dana— F. J. Ottarsoji 
—George M. Snow— Enter Horace Greeley— His Preliminary botheration— The 
composing-room in tho evening- The editors at work— Mr. Greeley's manner of 
•writing— Midnight— Three o'clock in tho morning— The carriers. 

"We are in the streets, walking from the regions where money is 
spent towards, those narrow and crooked places wherein it is earned. 
The day is about to dawn, but the street lights are still burning, and 
the greater part of the million people who live within sight of the 
City Hall's illuminated dial, are lying horizontal and unconscious, in 
the morning's last slumber. The streets are neither silent nor de- 
serted — the streets of New York never are. The earliest milkmen 
have begun their morning crow, squeak, whoop, and yell. The 
first omnibus has not yet come down town, but the butcher's 
carts, heaped , with horrid flesh, with men sitting upon it reeking 
with a nigliji's carnage, are rattling along Broadway at the furious 
pace for which the butcher's carts of all nations are noted. The 
earliest workmen are abroad, dinner-kettle in hand ; carriers with 
their bundles of newspapers slung across their backs by a strap, 
are emerging from Nassau street, and making their way across the 
Park — towards all the ferries — up Broadway — up Chatham street — 
to wherever their district of distribution begins. The hotels have 
just opened their doors and hghted up their oflfices ; and drowsy 
waiters are perambulating the interminable passages, knocking up 
passengers for the early trains, and waking up everybody else. In 
unnumbered kitchens the breakfast fire is kindling, but not yet, in 
any except the market restaurants, is a cup of coflfee attainable. 
The very groggeries — strange to see — are closed. Apparently, the 



31)2 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

last drunkard lias toppled home, and the last debauchee has skulked 
like a thieving bound to bis own bed ; for tbe wickedness of the 
night has been done, and tbe work of tbe day is beginning. 
There is something in the aspect of tbe city at this hour — tbe stars 
glittering over-bead — tbe long lines of gas-lights that stretch away 
in every direction — tbe few ^fayfarers stealing in and out among 
them in silence, like spirits — tbe myriad sign-boards so staring now, 
and useless — tbe bouses all magnified in tbe imperfect ligbt — so 
many evidences of intense life around, and yet so little of life vis- 
ibly present — which, to one wbo sees it for tbe first time (and few 
of us have ever seen it), is strangely impressive. 

Tbe Tribune building is before us. It looks as w^e never saw it 
look before. Tbe office is closed, and a gas-ligbt dimly burning 
shows that no one is in it. The dismal inky aperture in Spruce 
street by which tbe upper regions of tbe Tribune den are usually 
reached is shut, and the door is locked. That glare of ligbt wbicb 
on all previous nocturnal walks we have seen illuminating tbe 
windows of the tbird and fourth stories, revealing tbe bobbing com- 
positor in bis paper cap, and tbe bustling night-editor making up 
his news, shines not at this hour ; and those windows are undistin- 
guished from the lustreless ones of tbe bouses adjacent. Coiled up 
on the steps, stretcbed out on tbe pavement, are half a dozen 
sleeping newsboys. Two or three otbers are awake and up, of 
whom one is devising and putting into practice various modes of 
suddenly waking the sleepers. He rolls one off tbe step to the 
pavement, the sbock of wbicb is very effectual. He deals another 
wbo lies temptingly exposed, a 'loud-resounding' slap, which 
brings tbe slumberer to bis feet, and to bis fists, in an instant. Into 
tbe ear of a tbird be yells tbe magic word Flre^ a word wbicb 
tbe New York newsboy never bears with indifference ; tbe sleeper 
starts up, but perceiving the trick, growls a curse or two, and ad- 
dresses himself again to sleep. In a few minutes all tbe boys are 
awake, and taking their morning ./xercise of scuffling. Tbe base- 
ment of the building, we observe, is all a-glow witb light, though 
the clanking of the press is silent. Tbe carrier's enti'ance is open, 
and we descend into tbe fiery bowels of tbe street. 

We are in tbe Tribune's press-room. It is a large, low, ceilar-like 
apartment, unceiled, white-washed, inky, and unclean, witb a vast 



MORNING SCENE IN THE PRESS ROOM. S9o 

folding table in the middle, tall heaps of dampened paper all about, 
a quietly-running steam engine of nine-horse power on one side, 
twenty-five inky men and boys variously employed, and the whole 
brilliantly lighted up by jets of gas, numerous and flaring. On one 
side is a kind of desk or pulpit, with a table before it, and the 
whole separated from the rest of the apartment by a rail. In the 
pulpit, the night-clerk stands, counts and serves out the papers, 
with a nonchalant and graceful rapidity, that must be seen to be 
appreciated. The regular carriers were all served an hour ago * 
they have folded their papers and gone their several ways ; and 
early risers, two miles off, have already read the news of the day. 
The later newsboys, now, keep dropping in, singly, or in squads of 
three or four, each with his money ready in his hand. Usually, no 
words pass between them and the clerk ; he either knows how 
many papers they have come for, or they show him by exhibiting 
their money ; and in three seconds after his eye lights upon a newly- 
arrived dirty face, he has counted the requisite number of papers, 
counted the money for them, and thrown the papers in a heap into 
the boy's arms, who shngs them over his shoulder and hurries off 
for his supply of Times and Heralds. Occasionally a woman cornea 
in for a few papers, or a little girl, or a boy so small that he cannot 
see over the low rail in front of the clerk, and is obliged to an- 
nounce his presence and his desires by holding above it his little 
cash capital in his little black paw. In another part of the press- 
room, a dozen or fifteen boys are folding papers for the early mails, 
and folding them at the average rate of thirty a minute. A boy 
A«8 folded sixty papers a -minute in that press-room. Each paper 
has to be folded six times, and then laid evenly on the pile ; and 
the velocity of movement required for the performance of such a 
minute's work, the reader can have no idea of till he sees it done. 
As a feat, nothing known to the sporting world approaches it. The 
huge presses, that shed six printed leaves at a stroke, are in deep 
vaults adjoining the press-room. They are motionless now, but the 
gas that has lighted them during their morning's work still spurts 
out in flame all over them, and men with blue shirts and black 
faces are hoisting out the ' forms ' that have stamped their story on 
thirty thousand sheets. The vaults are oily, inky, and warm. Let 
ns ascend. « 

17^ ^;>^"^'' 



394 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

The day has dawned. As we approach the stairs that lead to the 
upper stories, we get a peep into a small, paved yard, where a 
group of pressmen, blue-overalled, ink-smeai^d, and pale, are wash- 
ing themselves and the ink-rollers ; and looking, in the dim light of 
the morning, like writhing devils. The stairs of the Tribune building 
are supposed to be the dirtiest in the world. By their assistance, 
however, we wind our upward way, past the editorial rooms in thia 
third story, which are locked, to the composing-room in the fourth, 
which are open, and in which the labor of transposing the news of 
the morning to the form of the weekly paper is in progress. Only 
two men are present, the foreman, Mr. Rooker, and one of his assist- 
ants. Neither of them wish to be spoken to, as their minds are 
occupied with a task that requires care ; but we are at liberty to 
look around. 

The composing-room of the Tribune is, I believe, the most con- 
venient, complete, and agreeable one in the country. It is very 
spacious, nearly square, lighted by windows on two sides, and by 
sky-lights from above. It presents an ample expanse of type-fonts, 
gas-jets with large brown-paper shades above them, long tables 
covered with columns of bright, copper-faced type, either 'dead* 
or waiting its turn for publication; and whatever else appertains to 
the printing of a newspaper. Stuffed into corners and interstices 
are aprons and slippers in curious variety. Pasted on the walls, 
lamp-shades, and doors, we observe a number of printed notices, 
from the perusal of which, aided by an occasional word from the 
obliging foreman, we are enabled to penetrate the mystery, and 
comprehend the routine, of the place. 

Here, for example, near the middle of the apartment, are a row 
of hooks, labelled respectively, ' Leaded Brevier ;' ' Solid Brevier ;' 
'Minion;' 'Proofs to revise ;' ' Compositors' Proofs — let no profane 
hand touch them except Smith's;' 'Bogus minion— when there is 
no other copy to be given out, then take from this hook.' Upon 
these hooks, the foreman hangs the ' copy ' as he receives it from 
below, and the men take it in turn, requiring no further direction 
as to the kind of type into which it is to be set. The ' bogus-min- 
ion ' hook contains matter not intended to be used ; it is designed 
merely to keep the men constantly employed, so as to obviate the 
necessity of their making petty charges for lost time, and thus com- 



THE TRIBUNE DIRECTORY. 395 

plicating their accounts. Below the ' bogus-hook,' there appears 
this ' Particular Notice :' ' This copy must be set, and the Takes 
emptied, with the same care as the rest.' From which we may in- 
fer, that a man is inclined to slight work that he knows to be use- 
less, even though it be paid for at the usual price per thousand. 

Another printed paper lets us into another secret. It is a list of the 
compositors employed in the office, divided into four " Phalanxes" of 
about ten men each, a highly advantageous arrangement, devised by 
ilr. Rooker. At night, when the copy begins to " slack up," i, e. 
when the work of the night approaches completion, one phalanx is 
dismissed ; then another ; then another ; then the last ; and the 
phalanx which leaves first at night comes first in the morning, and 
so on. The men who left work at eleven o'clock at night must be 
again in the office at nine, to distribute type and set up news for the 
evening edition of the paper. The second phalanx begins work at 
two, the third at five ; and at seven the whole company must be at 
their posts ; for, at seven, the business of the night begins in earnest. 
Printers will have their joke — as appears from this list. It is set in 
double columns, and as the number of men happened to be an un- 
even one, one name was obliged to occupy a, line by itself, and it 
appears thus — "Baker, (the teat-pig.)" 

The following notice deserves attention from the icord with which 
it begins : " Gentlemen desiring to wash and soak their distributing 
matter will please use hereafter the metal galleys I had cast for the 
purpose, as it is ruinous to galleys having wooden sides to keep wet 
type in them locked up. Thos. N. Eooker." It took the world an 
unknown number of thousand years to arrive at that word ' GEN"- 
TLEMEjST.' Indeed, the world has not arrived at it ; but there it is, in 
the composing-room of the ITew York Tribune, legible to all visitors. 

Passing by other notices, such as " Attend to the gas-meter on 
"Wednesdays and Saturdays, and to the clock on Monday morning," 
we may spend a minute or two in looking over a long printed cata- 
logue, posted on the door, entitled, " Tribune Directory. Corrected 
May 10, 1854. A list' of Editors, Reporters, Publishers, Clerks, 
Compositors, Proof-Readers, Pressmen, &o., employed on the New 
York Tribune." 

From this Directory one may learn that the Editor of the Tribune 
is Horace Greeley, the Managing-Editor Charles A. Dana, the Asso- 



396 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

date-Editors, James S, Pike, William II. Fry, George Ripley, George 
M. Snow, Bayard Taylor, F. J. Ottarson, TVilliam Newman, B. Brock 
way, Solon Eobinson, and Donald C. Henderson. "We perceive also 
that Mr. Ottarson is the City Editor, and that his assistants are in 
number fourteen. One of these keeps an eye on the Police, chron- 
icles arrests, walks the hospitals in search of dreadful accidents, and 
keeps the public advised of the state of its health. Three report 
lectures and speeches. Another gathers items of intelligence in 
Jersey City, Newark, and parts adjacent. Others do the same in 
Brooklyn and Williamsburgh. One gentleman devotes himself to 
the reporting of fires, and the movements of the military. Two 
examine and translate from the New York papers which are pub-, 
lished in the German, French, Italian and Spanish languages. Then, 
there is a Law Reporter, a Police Court Reporter, and a Collector 
of Marine Intelligence. Proceeding down the formidable catalogue, 
we discover that the ' Marine Bureau' (in common with the Asso- 
ciated Press) is under the charge of Commodore John T. Hall, who 
is assisted by twelve agents and reporters. Besides these, the Tri- 
bune has a special 'Ship News Editor.' The 'Telegraphic Bureau' 
(also in common with the Associated Press) employs one general 
agent and two subordinates, (one at Liverpool and one at Halifax,) 
and fifty reporters in various parts of the country. The number of 
regular and paid correspondents is thirty-eight — eighteen foreign, 
twenty home. The remaining force of the Tribune, as we are in- 
formed by the Directory, is, Thos. M'Elrath, chief of the depart- 
ment of pubhcation, assisted by eight clerks ; Thos. N. Rooker, fore- 
man of the composing-room, with eight assistant-foremen (three by 
day, five by night), thirty-eight regular compositors, and twenty- 
five substitutes ; George Hall, foreman of the press-room, with three 
assistants, sixteen feeders, twenty-five folders, three wrapper- writers, 
and three boys. Besides these, there are four proof-readers, and a 
number of miscellaneous individuals. It thus appears that the 
whole number of persons employed upon the paper is about two 
hundred and twenty, of whom about one hundred and thirty devote 
to it their whole time. The Directory further informs us that the 
proprietors of the establishment are sixteen in number — namely, 
seven editors, the publisher, four clerks, the foreman of the compos* 



A GLANCE AT THE i'APER. 397 

ing-roora, the foreman of the press-room, one compositor and one 
press-man. 

Except for a few hours on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morn- 
ing, tlie work of a daily paper never entirely ceases ; but, at this 
hour of the day, between six and seven o'clock, it does nearly 
. cease. The editors are still, it is to be hoped, asleep. The compos- 
itors have been in bed for two hours or more. The pressmen of 
the night are going home, and those of the day have not arrived. 
The carriers have gone their rounds. The youngest clerks have not 
yet appeared in the office. All but the slowest of the newsboys 
have got their supply of papers, and are making the streets and fer« 
ries vocal, or vociferous, with their well-known names. There is a 
general lull ; and while that lull continues, we shall lose nothing by 
going to breakfast. 

Part of which is the New York Tribune ; and we may linger 
over it a little longer than usual this morning. 

It does not look like it, but it is a fact, as any one moderately en- 
dowed with arithmetic can easily ascertain, that one number of the 
Tribune, if it were printed in the form of a book, with liberal type 
and spacing, would make a duodecimo volume of four hundred 
pages — a volume, in fact, not much less in magnitude than the one 
which the reader has, at this moment, the singular happiness of 
perusing. Each number is the result of, at least, two hundred days' 
work, or the work of two hundred men for one day ; and it is sold 
(to carriers and newsboys) for one cent and a half. Lucifer matches, 
at forty-four cents for a hundred and forty-four boxes, are supposed, 
and justly, to be a miracle of cheapness. Pins are cheap, consider- 
ing ; and so are steel pens. But the cheapest thing yet realized un- 
der the sun is the New York Tribune. 

The number for this morning contains six hundred and forty-one 
separate articles — from two-line advertisements to two-column es- 
says — of which five hundred and ten are advertisements, the re- 
mainder, one hundred and thirty-one, belonging to the various de- 
partments of reading matter. The reading matter, however, occu- 
pies about one half of the whole space — nearly four of the eight 
broad pages, nearly twenty-four of the forty-eight columns. The 
articles and paragraphs which must have been written for this num- 
ber, yesterday, or very reoently, in the office or at the editors' resi- 



398 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE^ TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

dences, fill thirteen columns, equal to a hundred pages of foolscap, 
or eighty such pages as this. There are five columns of telegraiDhic 
intelligence, which is, perhaps, two columns above the average. 
There are twelve letters from 'our own' and voluntary correspond- 
ents, of which five are from foreign countries. There have been as 
many as thirty letters in one number of the Tribune ; there are sel- 
dom less than ten. 

"What has the Tribune of this morning to say to ns ? Let us see. 

It is often asked, who reads advertisements? and the question is 
often inconsiderately answered, ' Nobody.' But, idle reader, if you 
were in search of a boarding-house this morning, these two columns 
of advertisements, headed 'Board arid Rooms,' would be read by you 
with the liveliest interest ; and so, in other circumstances, would 
those which reveal a hundred and fifty ' Wants,' twenty -two places 
of amusement, twenty-seven new publications, forty-two schools, 
and thirteen establishments where the best pianos in existence are 
made. If you had come into the possession of a fortune yesterday, 
this column of bank-dividend announcements would not be passed 
by with indifi'erence. And ii^you were the middle-aged gentleman 
who advertises his desire to open a correspondence with a young 
lady (all communications post-paid and the strictest secresy ob- 
served), you might peruse with anxiety these seven advertisements 
of hair-dye, each of which is either infallible, unapproachable, or 
the acknowledged best. And the eye of the ' young lady' w^ho ad- 
dresses you a post-paid communication in reply, informing you 
where an interview may be had, would perhaps rest for a moment 
upon the description of the new Baby -Walker, with some compla- 
cency. If the negotiation were successful, it were difficult to say 
what column of advertisements would not^ in its turn, become of 
the highest interest to one or the other, or both of you. In truth, 
every one reads the advertisements which concern them. 

The wonders of the telegraph are not novel, and, therefore, they 
seem wonderful no longer. We glance up and down the columns 
of telegraphic intelligence, and read without the slightest emotion, 
dispatches from Michigan, Halifax, Washington, Baltimore, Cincin- 
nati, Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis, New Orleans, and a dozen places 
nearer the city, some of which give us news of events that had not 
occurred when we went to bed last night. The telegraphic news of 



THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE PAPER. 399 

tins morning has run along four thousand seven hundred and fifty 
miles of wire, and its transmission, at the published rates, must have 
cost between two and three hundred dollars. On one occasion, re- 
cently, the steamer arrived at Halifax at half-past eleven in the eve- 
ning, and the substance of her news was contained in the New York 
papers the next morning, and probably in the papers of New Or- 
leans. A debate which concludes in Washington at midnight, is read 
in fiftieth street, New York, six hours after. But these are stale 
marvels, and they are received by us entirely as a matter of course. 

The- City department of the paper, conducted with uncommon 
efficiency by Mr. Ottarson, gives us this morning, in suflScient detail, 
the proceedings of a ' Demonstration' at Tammany Hall — of a meet- 
ing of the Bible Union — a session of the committee investigating 
the affairs of Columbia college — a meeting to devise measures for 
the improvement of the colored population — a temperance ' Demon- 
stration'— a session of the Board of Aldermen — a meeting of the 
commissioners of emigration — and one of the commissioners of ex- 
cise. A trial for murder is reported ; the particulars of seven fires 
are stated ; the performance of the opera is noticed; the progress of 
the ' State Fair ' is chronicled, and there are thirteen ' city items.' 
And what is most surprising is, that seven-tenths of the city mat- 
ter must have been prepared in the evening, for most of the events 
narrated did not occur till after dark. 

The Law Intelligence includes brief notices of the transactions of 
five courts. The Commercial Intelligence gives minute informa- 
tion respecting the demand for, the supply of, the price, and the re- 
cent sales, of twenty-one leading articles of trade. The Marino 
Journal takes note of the sailing and arrival of two hundred and 
seven vessels, with the name of the captain, owners and consign- 
ees. This is, in truth, the most astonishing department of a daily 
paper. Arranged under the heads of " Cleared," " Arrived," "-Dis- 
asters," "To mariners," " Spoken," " Whalers," " Foreign Ports," 
"Domestic Ports," "Passengers sailed," "Passengers arrived," it 
presents daily a mass and a variety of facts, which do not astound 
us, only because we see the wonder daily repeated. Nur is the 
shipping intelligence a mere catalogue of names, places and figures. 
Witness these sentences cut almost at random from the dense col- 
umns of small type in which the affairs of the sea are printed : 



400 DAY AND NIGHT IN THS TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

"Bark Gren. Jones, (of Boston,) Hodgden, London 47 days, chalk to E. S. 
Belknap & Sons. Aug. 14, lat. 50° 11', Ion. 9° 20', spoke ship Merensa, of Bos- 
ton, 19 days from Eastport for London. Aug. 19, signalized a ship showing 
Nos. 55, 31, steering E. Aug. 20, signalized ship L«aac Allerton, of New York. 
Sept. 1, spoke Br. Emerald, and supplied her with some provisions. Sept. 13, 
lat. 43° 36', Ion. 49° 54', passed a number of empty barrels and broken pieces of 
oars. Sept. 13, lat 43°, long 50° 40', while lying to in a gale, passed a vessel's 
spars and broken pieces of bulwarks, painted black and white ; supposed the 
spars to be a ship's topmasts. Sept. 19, lat. 41° 14', Ion. 56°, signalized a bark 
showing a red signal with a white spot in center." 

As no one not interested in marine affairs ever bestows a glance 
upon this part of his daily paper, these condensed tragedies of the 
sea "will be novel to the general reader. To compile the ship-news 
of this single morning, the log-books of twenty-seven vessels must 
have been examined, and information obtained by letter, telegraph, 
or exchange papers, from ninety-three sea-port towns, of which thir- 
ty-one are in foreign countries. Copied here, it would fill thirty-five 
pages, and every line of it was procured yesterday. 

The money article of the Tribune, to those who have any money, 
is highly interesting. It chronicles, to-day, the sales of stocks, the 
price of exchange and freight, the arrivals and departures of gold, 
the condition of the sub-treasury, the state of the coal-trade and 
other mining interests, and ends with gossip and argument about 
the Schuyler frauds. There is a vast amount of labor condensed 
in the two columns which the money article usually occupies. 

The Tribune, from the beginning of its career, has kept a vigilant 
eye upon passing literature. Its judgments have great weight with 
the reading public. They are always pronounced with, at least, an 
air of deliberation. They are always able, generally just, occasion- 
ally cruel, more frequently too kind. In this department, taking 
into account the quantity of information given — both of home and 
foreign literature, of books published and of books to be published 
— and the talent and knowledge displayed in its notices and reviews, 
the superiority of the Tribune to any existing daily paper is simply 
undeniable. Articles occasionally appear in the London journals, 
written after every other paper has expressed its judgment, written 
at ample leisure and by men pre-eminent in the one branch of let- 
ters to which the reviewed book belongs, which are superior to the 
reviews of the Tribune. It is the literary department of the paper, 



• EDITORIAL ARTICLES. 401 

for which superiority is here asserted. To-day, it happens, that' the 
paper contains nothing literary. In a daily paper, ne-ws has the 
precedence of everything, and a review of an epic greater than 
Paradise Lost might be crowded out by the report of an election 
brawl in the Sixth Ward. Thus, a poor author is often kept in trem- 
bling suspense for days, or even weeks, waiting for the review 
which he erroneously thinks will make or mar him. 

Like People, like Priest, says the old maxim ; which we may 
amend by saying, Like Editor, like Correspondent. From these 
' Letters from the People,' we infer, that when a man has something 
to say to the public, of a reformatory or humanitary nature, he is 
prone to indite an epistle ' to the Editor of the New York Tribune,' 
who, on his part, in tenderness to the public, is exceedingly prone 
to consign it to the basket of oblivion. A good many of these let- 
ters, however, escape into print — to-day, four, on some days a dozen. 
The London letters of the Tribune are written in London, the Paria 
letters in Paris, the Timbuctoo letters in Timbuctoo. This is strange, 
but true. 

In its editorial department, the Tribune has two advantages over 
most of its contemporaries. In the first place, it has an object of 
attack, the slave power ; and secondly, by a long course of warfare, 
it has won the conceded privilege of being sincere. Any one who 
has had to do with the press, is aware, that articles in newspapers 
are of two kinds, namely, those which are written for a jpur^Jose 
not avowed, and those which are written spontaneously, from the 
impulse and convictions of the writer's own mind. And any one 
who has written articles of both descriptions is aware, further, that a 
man who is writing with perfect sincerity, writing with a pure de- 
sire to move, interest, or convince, writes hetter^ than when the 
necessities of his vocation compel him to grind the axe for a party, 
or an individual. There is more or less of axe-grinding done in 
every newspaper office in the world; and a perfectly independent 
newspaper never existed. Take, for example, the London Times, 
which is claimed to be the most incorruptible of journals. The 
writers for the Times are trammeled, first, by the immense position 
of the paper, which give<^ to its leading articles a possible influence 
upon the affairs of the world. The aim of the writer is to express, 
not himself, but England ; as the Times is, in other countries, the 



t03 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

recognized voice of the British Empire ; and it is this which ren» 
ders much of the writing in ihe Times as safe, as vague, and as 
pointless, as a diplomatist's dispatch. The Times is further train 
meled by the business necessity of keeping on terms with those 
who have it in their power to give and withhold important intelli- 
gence. And, still further, by the fact, that general England, whom 
it addresses, is not up to the liberality of the age — in which the 
leading minds alone fully participates. Thus, it happens, that the 
articles in a paper like The Leader, which reaches only the liberal 
class, are often more pointed, more vigorous, more interesting, than 
those of the Times, though the resources of the Leader are extremely 
limited, and the Times can have its pick of the wit, talent, and learn- 
ing of the empire. "When a man writes with perfect freedom, then, 
and only then, he writes his dest. Without claiming for the Tri- 
bune a perfect innocence of axe-grinding, it may with truth be said, 
that the power of its leading editorial articles is vastly increased by 
the fact, that those who write them, do so with as near an approach 
to perfect freedom, i. e. sincerity, as the nature of newspaper-vv^rit- 
ing, at present, admits of. What it gains, too, in spirit and interest 
by having the preposterous inaptitude of the Southern press to rid- 
icule, and the horrors of Southern brutality to denounce, is suffi- 
ciently known. 

But it is time we returned to the office. It is ten o'clock in the 
morning. The clerks in the office are at their posts, receiving ad- 
vertisements, recording them, entering the names of new subscrib- 
ers received by the morning's mail, of which on some mornings of 
the year there are hundreds. It is a busy scene. 

Up the dismal stairs to a dingy door in the third story, upon 
which we read, " Editorial Booms of the New York Tribune. H. 
Greeley." "We ought not to be allowed to enter, but we are, and 
we do ; no one hinders us, or even notices our entrance. First, a 
narrow passage, with two small rooms on the left, whence, later in 
the day, the rapid hum of proof-reading issues unceasingly, one man 
reading the 'copy' aloud, another having his eyes fixed upon the slip 
of proof. One may insert his visage into the square aperture in the 
doors of these minute apartments, and gaze upon the performance 
with persistent impertinence ; bnt the proof-reading goes on, like a 
machine. At this hour, however, these rooms contain no one. A 



THE EDITORIAL ROOMS. 403 

few steps, and the principal Editorial Room is before ns. It is a 
long, narrow apartment, with desks for tho principal editors along' 
the sides, with shelves well-loaded with books and manuscripts, a 
great heap of exchange papers in the'midst, and a file of the Tri- 
bune on a broad desk, slanting from the wall. Everything is in 
real order, but apparent confusion, and the whole is ' blended in a 
common element of dust.' Nothing particular appears to be going 
on. Two or three gentlemen are looking over the papers ; but the 
desks are all vacant, and each has upon its lid a pile of letters and 
papers awaiting the arrival of him to whose department they be- 
long. One desk presents an array of new publications that might 
well appal the most industrious critic — twenty-four new books, 
seven magazines, nine pamphlets, and two new papers, all expect- 
ing a ' first-rate notice.' At the right, we observe another and 
smaller room, with a green carpet, two desks, a sofa, and a large 
book-case, filled with books of reference. This is the sanctum sanc- 
torum. The desk near the window, that looks out upon the green 
Park, the white City Hall in the midst thereof, and the lines of 
moving life that bound the same, is the desk of the Editor-in-Chief. 
It presents confusion merely. The shelves are heaped with manu- 
scripts, books, and pamphlets ; its lid is covered with clippings from 
newspapers, each containing something supposed by the assiduous 
e3;change-reader to be of special interest to the Editor ; and over 
all, on the highest shelf, near the ceiling, stands a large bronze bust 
of Henry Clay, wearing a croAvn of dust. The other desk, near the 
door, belongs to the second in command. It is in perfect order. 
A heap of foreign letters, covered with stamps and post-marks, 
awaits his coming. The row of huge, musty volumes along the 
floor against one of the walls of the room, is a complete file of tho 
Tribune, with some odd volumes of the New Yorker and Log 
Ca'jin. 

An hour later. One by one the editors arrive. Solon Robinson, 
looking, with his flowing white beard and healthy countenance, like 
a good-humored Prophet Isaiah, or a High Priest in undress, has 
dropped into his corner, and is compiling, from letters and newspa- 
pers, a column of paragraphs touching the efi'ect of the drouth 
upon the potato crop. Bayard Taylor is reading a paper in the 
American attitude. His countenance has quite lost tho Nubian 



104 DAY AND NIGHT IN TH« IRIBUNE OFFICE. 

bronze with which it darkened on the banks of the White Nile, as 
well as the Japanning which his last excursion gave it. Pale, deli- 
cate-featured, with a curling beard and subdued moustache, slight 
in figure, and dressed with care, he has as little the aspect of an ad- 
venturous traveler, and as much the air of a nice young gentleman, 
as can be imagined. He may read in peace, for he is not now one 
of the ' hack-horses' of the daily press. The tall, pale, intense- 
looking gentleman who is slowly pacing the carpet of the inner 
sanctum is Mr. William H. Fry, the composer of Leonora. At this 
moment he is thinking out thunder for to-morrow's Tribune. "Wil- 
liam Henry Fry is one of the noblest fellows alive — a hater ot 
meanness and wrong, a lover of man and right, with a power of 
expression equal to the intensity of his hate and the enthusiasm of 
his love. There is more merit in his little finger than in a whole 
mass-meeting of Douglass-senators ; and from any but a grog-ruled 
city he would have been sent to Congress long ago ; but perhaps, 
as Othello remarks, ' it is better as it is.' Mr. Ripley, who came in 
a few minutes ago, and sat down before that marshaled array of 
books and magazines, might be described in the language of Mr. 
"Weller the elder, as ' a stout gentleman of eight and forty.' He is 
in for a long day's work apparently, and has taken off his coat. 
Luckily for authors, Mr. Ripley is a gentleman of sound digestion 
and indomitable good humor, who enjoys life and helps others en- 
joy it, and believes that anger and hatred are seldom proper, and 
never ' pay.' He examines each book, we observe, with care. 
Without ever being in a hurry, he gets through an amazing quan- 
tity of work ; and all he does shows the touch and finish of the 
practical hand. Mr. Dana enters with a quick, decided step, goes 
straight to his desk in the green-carpeted sanctum sanctorum, and 
is soon lost in the perusal of ' Karl Marx,' or ' An American Wo- 
man in Paris.'' In figure, face, and flowing beard, he looks enough 
like Louis Kossuth to be his cousin, if not his brother. Mr. Dana, 
as befits his place, is a gentleman of peremptory habits. It is his 
office to decide ; and, as he is called upon to perform the act of de- 
cision a hundred times a day, he has acquired txie power both of 
deciding with despatch and of announcing his decision with civil 
brevity, If you desire a plain answer to a plain question, Charles 
A. Dana is the gentleman who can accommodate you. He is an 



THE EDITORIAL CORPS. 405 

able and, ia description, a brilliant writer ; a good speaker ; fond 
and proud of his profession ; indefatigable in the discharge of its 
duties ; when out of harness, agreeable as a companion ; in harness, 
a man not to be interrupted. Mr. Ottarson, the city editor, has not 
yet made h's appearance ; he did not leave the office last night till 
three hours after midnight. Before he left, however, he prepared 
a list of things to be reported and described to-day, writing oppo- 
site each expected occurrence the name of the man whom he wished 
to attend to it. The reporters come to the office in the morning, 
and from this list ascertain what special duty is expected of them. 
Mr. Ottarson rose from the ranks. He has been everything in a 
newspaper office, from devil to editor. He is one of the busiest of 
men, and fills the most difficult post in the establishment with great 
ability. That elegant and rather distingue gentleman with the 
small, black, Albert moustache, who is writing at the desk over 
there in the corner, is the commercial editor, the writer of the 
money article — Mr. George M. Snow. We should have taken him 
for anything but a commercial gentlemen. Mr. Pike, the 'J. S. P.' 
of former Washington correspondence, now a writer on political 
s-ubjects, is not present ; nor are other members of the corps. 

Between twelve and one, Mr. Greeley comes in, with his pockets 
full of papers, and a bundle under his arm. His first act is to dis- 
patch his special aid-de-sanctum on various errands, such as to de- 
liver notes, letters and messages, to procure seeds or implements 
for the farm, et cetera. Then, perhaps, he will comment on the 
morning's paper, dwelling with pertinacious emphasis upon its de- 
fects, hard to be convinced that an alleged fault was unavoidable. 
After two or three amusing colloquies of this nature, he makes 
his way to the sanctum, where, usually, several people are waiting 
to see him. He takes his seat at his desk and begins to examine 
the heap of notes, letters, newspapers and clippings, with which it 
is covered, while one after another of his visitors states his busi- 
ness. One is an exile who wants advice, or a loan, or an advertise- 
ment inserted gratis ; he does not get the loan, for Mr. Greeley 
long ago shut down the door upon miscellaneous borrowers and 
beggars. Another visitor has an invention which he wishes par- 
agraphed into celebrity. Another is one of the lecture-committee 
of a country Lyceum, and wants our editor to 'come out and give 



406 DAT AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

ns a lecture tJiis winter.' Another is a conntry clergyman who has 
called to say how much he likes the semi-weekly Tribune, and to 
gratify his curiosity by speaking with the editor face to face. Grad- 
ually the throng diminishes and the pile of papers is reduced. By 
three or four o'clock, this preliminary botheration is disposed of, 
and Mr. Greeley goes to dinner. 

Meanwhile, all the departments of the establishment have beep 
in a state of activity. It is Thursday, the day of the Weekly Tri 
buue, the inside of which began to be printed at seven in the morn- 
ing. Before the day closes, the whole edition, one hundred and 
sixteen thousand, forty-eight cart-loads, will have been printed, 
folded, wrapped, bundled, bagged, and carried to the post-office. 
The press-room on Thursdays does its utmost, and presents a scene 
of bustle and movement 'easier imagined than described.' No 
small amount of work, too, is done in the office of publication. 
To-day, as we ascertain, two hundred and thirteen business letters 
were received, containing, among other things less interesting, 
eleven hundred and seventy-two dollars, and four hundred and ten 
new or renewed subscriptions, each of which has been recorded 
Bnd placed upon the wrapper- writer's books. The largest sum 
ever received by one mail was eighteen hundred dollars. The 
weekly expenditures of the concern average about six thousand 
two hundred dollars, of which sum four thousand is for paper. 
During the six dull months of the year, the receipts and expendi- 
tures are about equal ; in the active months the receipts exceed 
the expenditures. 

It is nine o'clock in the evening. Gas has resumed. The clank 
of the press has ceased, and the basement is dimly lighted. The 
clerks, who have been so busy all day, have gone home, and the 
ni^ht-clerk, whom we saw this morning in his press-room pulpit, is 
now behind the counter of the office receiving advertisements. 
Night-work agrees with him, apparently, for he is robust, ruddy 
and smiling. Aloft in the composing room, thirty-eight men are 
setting type, silently and fast. No sound is heard but the click of 
the type, or the voice, now and then, of a foreman, or the noise of 
of the copy-box rattling up thewooden pipe from the editor's room 
below, or a muffled grunt from the tin tube by which the diffisrent 
rooms hold converse with one another, or the bell which calls for 



THE COMPOSING ROOM IN THE EVENING. 407 

the application of an ear to the moutli of that tube. The place ia 
warm, close, light, and still. Whether it is necessarily detrimental 
to a compositor's health to work from eight to ten liours every night 
in such an atmosphere, in such a light, is still, it appears, a ques- 
tion. Mr. Greeley thinks it is not. The compositors think it is, 
and seldom feel able to work more than four nights a week, filling 
their places on the other nights from the list of substitutes, or in 
printers language ' subs.' Compositors say, that sleep in the day 
time is a very different thing from sleep at night, particularly in 
summer, when to create an artificial night is to exclude the needful 
air. They say that they never get perfectly used to the reversion 
of nature's order ; and often, after a night of drowsiness so extreme 
that they would give the world if they could sink down upon the 
floor and sleep, they go to bed at length, and find that offended 
Morpheus has taken his flight, and left their eye-lids glued to their 
broAvs; and they cannot close them before the inexorable hour ar- 
rives that summons them to work again. In. the middle of the 
room the principal night-foreman is already ' making up' the out- 
side forms of to-morrow's paper, four in number, each a section of 
a cylinder, with rims of polished iron, and type of copper face. It 
is slow work, and a moment's inattention might produce results 
more ridiculous than cross-readings. 

The editorial rooms, too, have become intense. Seven desks are 
occupied with silent writers, most of them in the Tribune uniform— 
shirt-sleeves and: moustache. The night-reader is looking over the' 
papers last arrived, with scissors ready for any paragraph of naws 
that catches his eye. An editor occasionally goes to the copy-box, 
places in it a page or two of the article he is writing, and rings the 
bell ; the box slides up to the composing-room, and the pages are in 
type and corrected before the article is finished. Such articles are 
those which are prompted by the event of the hour ; others are 
more deliberately written ; some are weeks in preparation; and of 
some the keel is laid months before they are launched upon the pub- 
lic mind. The Editor-in-Chief is at his desk writing in a singular 
attitude, the desk on a level with his nose, and the writer sitting 
bolt upright. He writes rajndly, with scarcely a pause for thought, 
and not once in a page makea an erasure. The foolscap leaves fly 
from under his pen at the rate »f one in fifteen minutes. He does 



,408 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

most of the thuildng before he begins to write, and produces matter 
about as fast as a swift copyist can copy. Yet he leaves nothing for 
the compositor to guess at, and if he makes an alteration in the proof, 
he is careful to do it in such a way that the printer loses no time in 
' overrunning ;' that is, he inserts as many words as he erases. Not 
unfrequently he bounds up into the composing-room, and makes a 
correction or adds a sentence with his own hand. He is not patient 
under the infliction of an. error ; and he expects men to understand 
his wishes by intuition ; and when they do not^ but interpret his 
half-expressed orders in a way exactly contrary to his intention, a 
scene is likely to ensue. 

And so they write and read in the editorial rooms of the Tribune 
for some hours. Occasionally a City Reporter comes in with his 
budget of intelligence, or his short-hand notes, and sits down at a 
desk to arrange or write them out. Telegraphic messages arrive 
from the agent of the Associated Press, or from ' our own corre- 
spondent.' Mr. Dana glances over them, sends them aloft, and, it 
they are important, indites a paragraph calling attention to the fact. 
That omnipresent creature, the down-town apple-woman, whom no 
labyrinth puzzles, no extent of stairs fatigues, no presence overawes, 
enters, and thrusts her basket in deliberate succession under each 
editorial nose. Some of the corps, deep in the affairs of the nation, 
pause in their writing, gaze at the woman in utter abstraction, slow- 
ly come to a sense of her errand, shake their heads, and resume'" 
their work. Others hurriedly buy an apple, and taking one prodig- 
ious bite, lay it aside and forget it. A band of music is heard in 
the street; it is a target-excursion returning late from Hoboken; it 
passes the office and gives it three cheers ; the city men go to the win- 
dows ; the rest write on unconscious of the honor that has been 
done them ; the Tribune returns the salute by a paragraph. 

Midnight. The strain is off. Mr. Greeley finished his work about 
eleven, chatted a while with Mr. Dana, and went home. Mr. Dana 
has received from the foreman the li&t of the articles in type, the 
articles now in hand, and the articles expected ; he has designated 
those which must go in ; those which it is highly desirable should 
go in, and those which will 'keep.' He has also marked the order 
in which the articles are to appear ; and, having performed this last 
duty, he returns the list to the compositor, puts on his coat and de- 



MIDNIQHT. 4Q0 

parts. Mr. Fry is on the last page of his critique of this evening's 
Grisi, which he executes with steam-engine rapidity, and sends np 
without reading. He lingers awhile, and then strolls off up town. 
Mr. Ottarson is still busy, as reporters continually arrive witli items 
of news, which he hastily examines, and consigns either to the bas- 
ket under his desk, or to the copy-box. The first phalanx of com- 
positors is dismissed, and they come thundering down the dark stairs, 
putting on their coats as they descend. The foreman is absorbed in 
making up the inside forms, as he has just sent those of the outside 
below, and the distant clanking of the press announces that they 
have begun to be printed. We descend, and find the sheets coming 
o& the press at the rate of a hundred and sixty a minute. The en- 
gine-man is commodiously seated on an inverted basket, under a 
gas-jet, reading the outside of the morning's paper, and the chief of 
the press-room is scanning a sheet to see if the impression is perfect. 
The gigantic press has six mouths, and six men are feeding him with 
white paper, shpping in the sheets with the easy knack acquired by 
long practice. It looks a simple matter, this ' feeding ;' but if a new 
hand were to attempt it, the iron maw of the monster would be 
instantly choked, and his whole system disarranged. For he is as 
delicate as he is strong; the little finger of a child can start and 
stop him, moderate his pace, or quicken it to the snapping of his 
sinews. 

Three o'clock in the morning, Mr. Ottarson is in trouble. The 
outside of the paper is printed, the inside forms are ready to be low- 
ei'ed away to the basement, and the press-men are impatiently wait- 
ing the signal to receive it. The pulpit of the night clerk is ready 
for his reception, the spacious folding- table is cleared, and two car- 
riers have already arrived. All the compositors except the last 
phalanx have gone home ; and they have corrected the last proof, 
and desire nothing so much as to be allowed to depart. But an 
English steamer is overdue, and a telegraphic dispatch from the 
agent of the Associated Press at Sandy Hook, who has been all night 
in his yacht cruising for the news, is anxiously expected. It does 
not come. The steamer (as we afterwards ascertain) has arrived, 
but the captain churlishly refused to throw on board the yacht the 
customary newspaper. Mr. Ottarson fancies he hears a gun. A 
moment after he is positive he hears another. He has five men of 

18 



410 DAY AND NIGHT IN THE TRIBUNE OFFICE. 

his corps withiu call, and he sends them flying ! One goes to the 
Astor House to see if tli^y have heard of the steamer's arrival ; an- 
other to the offices of the Times and Herald, on the same errand ; 
others to Jersey City, to be ready in case the steamer reaches her 
Tvharf in time. It is ascertained, about half-past three, that the 
steamer is coming np the bay, and that her news cannot possibly be 
procured before five ; and so, Mr. Ottarson, having first ascertained 
that the other morning papers have given up the hope of the newer 
for their first editions, goes to press in despair, and home in ill humor. 
In a few minutes, the forms are lowered to the basement, wheeled 
to the side of the press, and hoisted to their places on the press by 
a crank. The feeders take their stands, the foreman causes the 
press to make one revolution, examines a sheet, pronounces it all 
right, sets the press in motion at a rattling rate, and nothing remains 
to be done except to print off thirty thousand copies and distribute 
them. 

The last scene of all is a busy one indeed. The press-room is all 
alive with carriers, news-men and folding-boys, each of whom is in 
a fever of hurry. Four or five boys are carrying the papers in back- 
loads from the press to the clerk, and to the mailing tables. The 
carriers receive their papers in the order of the comparative dis- 
tance of their districts from the office. jtTo money passes between 
them and the clerk. They come to the office every afternoon, ex- 
amTne the book of subscribers, note the changes ordered in their 
respective routes, pay for the number of papers they will require on 
the following morning, and receive a ticket entitling them to receive 
the designated number. The number of papers distributed by one 
carrier varies from two hundred and fifty to five hundred. Some 
of the carriers, however, are assisted by boys As a carrier gains 
a weekly profit of three cents on each subscriber, one who delivers 
fave hundred papers has an income of fifteen dollars a week ; and it 
is well earned. Most of the small news-men in town, country, and 
railroad-car, are supplied with their papers by a wholesale firm, who 
deliver them at a slight increase of price over the first cost. The 
firm alluded to purchases from four to five thousand coj)ies of the 
Tribune every morning. 

By five o'clock, usually, the morning edition has been printed 
off, the carriers supplied, the early mail dispatched, and the bundles 



THE CARRIERS. 411 

for adjacent towns made up. Again there is" a lull in the activity 
of the Tribune building, and, sleepily, we bend our steps homeward. 

There is something extremely pleasing in the spectacle afforded 
by a large number of strong men co-operating in cheerful activity, 
by which they at once secure their own career, and render an im- 
portant service to the public. Such a spectacle the Tribune build- 
ing presents. At present men show to best advantage when they 
are at work; we have not yet learned to sport with grace and un-' 
mixed benefit ; and still further are we from that stage of develop- 
ment where work and play become one. But the Tribune building 
is a very cheerful place. No one is oppressed or degraded ; and, 
by the minute subdivision of labor in all departments, there is sel- 
dom any occasion for hurry or excessive exertion. The distinctions 
which there exist betw^een one man and another, are not artificial, 
but natural and necessary ; foreman and editor, office-boy and head 
clerk, if they converse together at all, converse as friends and 
equals ; and the posts of honor are posts of honor, only because they 
are posts of difficulty. In a word, the republicanism of the Con- 
tinent has come to a focus at the corner of Nassau and Spruce- 
streets. There it has its nearest approach to practical realization ; 
thence proceeds its strongest expression. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

POSITION AND INFLUENCE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

At the head of his Profession— Extent of his Influence— Nature of his Influence— A 
Conservative-Radical — His Practical Suggestions— To Aspiring Young Men — 
Have a Home of your own — To Young Mechanics — Coming to the City — A Labor 
Exchange — Pay as you go — To the Lovers of Knowledge — To Young Orators — The 
Colored People— To young Lawyers and Doctors— To an inquiring SlaA^eholder— 
To Country Editors— In Peace, prepare for War— To Coxmtry Merchants— Tene- 
ment Houses. 

A SATIRIST observes, that the difference, in modern days, between 
a distinguished and a common man is, that the name of a distin- 



412 POSITION AND INFLUENCE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

guished man is frequently printed in newspapers, the name of a 
common man never or seldom. If the remark is correct, then Hor- 
ace Greeley is by far tlie most distinguished person, out of office, 
in the United States. The click of the types that set up his name 
is seldom hushed. Probably, more than half of our three thousand 
newspapers published this week, contain something about him or 
by him, something at least which but for him they would not con- 
tain. And who has seen, for the last few years, a political carica- 
ture in which the man with the white coat, and long locks, and hat 
on the back of his head, does not figure conspicuously? In Eng- 
land, it is a maxim, that the politician who is not caricatured is a 
failure. "What an immense success, then, would the English accord 
to Horace Greeley ! 

It is rare indeed for a man to attain precisely that position in life, 
which, in his youthful days, he coveted and aimed at. This happi- 
ness, this success, our hero enjoys. He tells us, that in his boyhood, 
he had ' no other ambition than that of attaining usefulness and 
position as an editor, and to th4s end all the studies and efforts of 
his life have tended.' As editor of the ISIew York Tribune, Horace 
Greeley, at this moment, stands at the head of the editorial profess- 
ion in this country. The Tribune, with all its faults and deficien- 
cies, is incomparably the ablest paper that we have yet realized. 
He who denies this convicts himself, not of error, but of ignorance 
or defective understanding. Yet many will deny It; but few who 
are at all acquainted with the country, will dispute the following 
assertion : 

During the last ten years or more, Horace Greeley has influenced 
a greater amount of thought and a greater number of characters, 
than any other individual who has lived in this land. 

At a rough calculation, he has written and published, during his 
editorial career, matter enough to fill one hundred and fifty volumes 
like this ; and his writings, whatever other merit they possess or 
lack, have the peculiarity of being readable, and they are read. He 
has, moreover, addressed a larger number of persons than any other 
editor or man ; and the majority of his readers live in these north- 
ern States, where the Intelligence, the Virtue, and (therefore) the 
Wealth, of this confederacy chiefly reside. He edits a paper to 
which many able men contribute, who write under the unavoidable 



EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE. 413 

condition of not expressing an opinion to which the editor-in-chief 
is opposed ; and who owe their connection with the paper to the 
fact of their general concordance with him on subjects of the first 
importance. To these means of inflaence, add his continual lectur- 
ing and public speaking, add the Whig Almanac, add the scores of 
Trihunes that have been started all over the northern States, Tri- 
bunes similar in spirit and intent to their great original, and then 
doubt, if you can, that Horace Greeley has long been the most in- 
fluential man among all the millions of his countrymen! 

What is the nature of his influence ? What has he tried to effect? 

Any man who is not entirely a fool is better acquainted with him- 
self than any one else is acquainted with him. In the preface to 
the Hints towards Reforms, Horace Greeley states what, he con- 
ceives, has been his aim as a politician. He has ' aspired to be a 
mediator, an interpreter, a reconciler, between Conservatism and 
Eadicalism — to bring the two into such connection and relation, 
that the good in each may obey the law of chemical afiBnity, and 
abandon whatever portion of either is false, mistaken or oul-worn, 
to sink down and perish.' And again, he has ' endeavored so to 
elucidate what is just and practical in the demands of our time for 
a social Renovation, that the humane and philanthropic can no 
longer misrepresent and malign them as destructive or infidel in 
their tendencies ; but must joyfully recognize in them the fruits of 
past, and the seeds of future, progress in the history of our race.' 
Thus, with all his radical and progressive tendencies, he was for 
many arduous years a leading champion of our conservative party. 
That a position like this, between two opposing forces, is more apt 
to excite the hostility of both than the confidence of either, has 
been frequently shown in the career of Horace Greeley. Party, 
like the heart of a woman, demands all, or refuses any. 

On this point, however, — the nature of Horace Greeley's influence 
in this country, — we may properly and profitably be more particular. 
His opinions on such subjects as religion and politics, which include 
all others, the reader is acquainted with. TYiq forte of the man lies 
m m2L\i\r\g practical suggestions for the better conduct of the ma- 
terial life of the American people. He knows the American peo- 
ple — he is, emphatically, one of them — and he knows what they 
need and what they wish. Passing by, without further statement^ 



414 POSITION AND INFLUENCE OF* HORACE GREELEY. 

what may be called, in a technical sense, Horace Greeley's Opinions, 
I will append a few of the suggestions he has made, from time to 
time, designed to reform or improve: 

TO ASPIRLN^G YOUNG- MEN. 
" ' I want to go into business,' is tlae aspiration of our young men : ' can't 
you find me a place in the city?' their constant inquiry. 'Friend,' we an- 
swer to many, * the best business you can go into you will find on your father's 
farm or in bis workshop. If you have no family or friends to aid you, and no 
prospect opened to you there, turn your face to the Great West, and there 
build up a home and fortune. But dream not of getting suddenly rich by 
speculation, rapidly by trade, or any how by a profession : all these avenues 
are choked by eager, struggling aspirants, and ten must be trodden down in 
the press where one can vault upon his neighbor's shoulders to honor or 
wealth. Above all, be neither afraid nor ashamed of honest industry ; and if 
you catch yourself fancying anything more respectable than this, be ashamed 
of it to the last day of your life. Or, if you find yourself shaking more cor- 
dially the hand of your cousin the Congressman than of your uncle the black- 
smith, as'such, write yourself down an enemy to the principles of our institu- 
tions, and a traitor to the dignity of Humanity.' " 

THE WORLD OWES ME A LIYING. 

" How owes ? Have you earned it by good service 1 If you have, whether 
on the anvil or in the pulpit, as a toiler or a teacher, you have acquired a just 
right to a livelihood. But if you have eaten as much as you have earned, or — 
worse still — have done little or no good, the world owes you nothing. You 
may be worth millions, and able to enjoy every imaginary luxury without 
care or effort ; but if you have done nothing to increase the sum of human 
comforts, instead of the world owing you anything, as fools have babbled, you 
are morally bankrupt and a beggar." 

TO FARMERS. 

" 'I can't afford to cultivate my land so nicely ; I am not able.' Then, sir, 
sell all you are unable to use properly, and obtain means to cultivate 
thoroughly what you retain. If you have a hundred acres sell fifty, keep 
twenty acres of arable, and thirty of rocky woodland, and bring this to per- 
fection." 

A HOME OF TOIJR OWN. 
" We wish it were possible to imbue every man, but especially every young 
man, with the desire of having a home of his own — a home to be adhered to 
through life. Next to the home itself, an earnest, overruling desire for one, 



HIS PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 415 

would be a great blessing. A man who owns the roof that shelters him, and 
the soil from which he djraws his subsistence— and few acres are requisite for 
that — need not envy any Nabob's great fortune." 

TO TOUNG MECHANICS. 

" ' It is the first step that costs.' The main obstacle to saving is the lack 
of the habit. lie who at twenty- two has saved a hundred dollars, earned by 
JQonest, useful eflfort during the first year of his >€lf-control, will be very un- 
likely ever to be destitute thereafter. On the oth^T hand, he who has saved 
nothing at the end of his first year of independence, will be pretty certain to 
carry a poor man's head on his shoulders while he lives. 

" Our young mechanics are not thrifty, because of the evil habits they have 
formed during their minority. * * * By-and-bye he marries, and re- 
trenches some of his worst expenses, but too late — the increased demands of a 
growing family absorb every cent he can earn ; and at fifty or sixty years of 
age you will see him emerging, seedy and sickly, from the groggery, whither 
he has repaired for his bitters or his eleven o'clock, enfeebled in body, and 
discouraged in spirit, out of humor with everything and everybody, and curs- 
ing the banks, or the landlords, the capitalists, or the speculators, as plun- 
derers and enslavers of the poor." 

COMING TO THE CITY. 

" The young man fit to come to a city does not begin by importuning some 
relative or friend to find or make a place for him. Having first qualified 
himself, so far as he may, for usefulness here, he comes understanding that 
he must begin at the foot of the class, and work his way up. Having found 
a place to stop, he makes himself acquainted with those places where work in 
his line may be found, sees the advertisements of ' Wants' in the leading jour- 
nals at an early hour each morning, notes those which hold out some pros- 
pect for him, and accepts the first place offered him which he can take honor- 
ably and fill acceptably. He who commences in this way is quite likely to 
get on." • 

A LABOE-EXOHANGE. 

" What I would suggest would be the Union and Organization of all work- 
ers for their mutual improvement and benefit, leading to the erection of a 
spacious edifice at some central point in our city to form a Laborers' Ex- 
change, just as Commerce now has its Exchange, very properly. Let the new 
Exchange be erected and owned as a joint-stock property, paying a fair divi- 
dend to those whose money erected it ; let it contain the best spacious hall 
for general meetings to be found in our city, with smaller lecture-rooms for 
the meetings of particular sections or callings— all to be leased or rented at 
fair prices to all who may choose to hire them, when not needed for the 



416 POSITION AND lNFLUENCB»OF UORACB GREBLHT. 

primary purpose of discussing and advancing the interests of labor. Let us 
have here booljs opened, wherein any one wanting work may inscribe his 
name, residence, caracities and terms, while any one wishing to hire may do 
likewise, as well as meet personally those seeking employment." 

PAY AS YOU GO. 
" ' Mr. President,' said John Randolph once, apropos to nothing in one of hia 
rambling Congressional harangues, ' I have found the philosopher's stone I 
It consists of four short English words — ' Pay as you go.' " 

TO THE LOYEES OF KNOWLEDGE. 

" Avoid the pernicious error that you must have a profession — must be a 
clergyman, lawyer, doctor, or something of the sort — in order to be influential, 
useful, respected ; or, to state the case in its best aspect, that you may lead an 
intellectual life. Nothing of the kind is necessary — very far from it. If your 
tendencies are intellectual — if you love knowledge, wisdom, virtue for them- 
selves, you will grow in them, whether you earn your bread by a profession, a 
trade, or by tilling the ground. Nay, it may be doubted whether the farmer 
or mechanic, who devotes his leisure hours to intellectual pursuits from a pure 
love of them, has not some advantages therein over the professional man. 
He comes to his book at evening with his head clear and his mental appetite 
sharpened by the manual labors, taxing lightly the spirit or brain ; while the 
lawyer, who has been running over dry books for precedents, the doctor, who 
has been racking his wits for a remedy adapted to some new modification of 
disease, or the divine, who, immured in his closet, has been busy preparing 
his next sermon, may well approach the evening volume with faculties jaded 
and palled." 

TO YOUXG OEATOES. 

" A young "Whig inquires how are young men who can speak to be distin* 
guished from the many who only think they can, and brought into the field. 
"We answer — Step out into any neighborhood where you are acquainted, and 
if there is no Clay Club there now, aid in getting one up. You wilf there nat- 
urally be called on to speak at its opening, and be sure you have a thorough 
acquaintance with the^ac^s material to the great issue, and the documents un- 
der your elbow to sustain them. After that, if you speak to the purpose, you 
will be called on quite as often as you will choose to speak. But choose small 
gatherings, until you know that you are master of the questions in issue." 

A WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 

''■\Ye have not much faith in monument-building; yet it strikes us that a 
monument to Washington, so planned as to minister at every point to purposes 
of great public utility, would be a good thing. Let it contain apartments cop- 



HIS PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. -117 

secrated to art and knowledge — let its summit be an observatory, telegraph 
station, <fcc., and the common and forcible objection to monuments will be ob- 
viated." 

THE COLOEED PEOPLE. 

"What the colored people need is not so much Power as Self Elevation — not 
so much better manners and greater consideration from the whites as greater 
respect for and confidence in themselves, based on substantial grounds. So 
ong as they remain pretty generally boot-blacks, tavern-waiters, clothes-scour- 
ers, <fec., from seeming choice, the Right to Vote will be of precious little ac- 
count to them. But let them as a class step aside from those who insult and 
degrade them, like a small band of them in Ohio, buy a tract of land which 
shall be all their own, and go to work upon it, clearing, building, farming, 
manufacturing, &c., and they will no longer care much that those who are of 
baser spirit, though with whiter skins, refuse to consider them men and admit 
them to the common privileges of manhood. We see no plan of elevating 
them half so certain or so feasible as this." 



TO YOUNG LAWYERS AND DOOTOES. 

" Qualify yourselves at College to enlighten the farmers and mechanics among 
whom, you settle in the scientific principles and facts which underlie their sev- 
eral vocations. The great truths of Geology, Chemistry, &c., &c., ought to be 
well known to you when yoar education is completed, and these, if you have 
the ability to impart and elucidate them, will make you honorably known to 
the inhabitants of any county wherein you may pitch your tent, and will thus 
insure you a subsistence from the start, and ultimately professional employ- 
ment and competence. Qualify yourself to lecture accurately and fluently on 
the more practical and important principles of Natural Science, and you will 
soon find opportunities, auditors, customers, friends. Show the farmer how to 
fertilize his fields more cheaply and effectively than he has hitherto done — 
teach the builder the principles and more expedient methods of heating and 
ventilation — tell the mason how to correct, by understanding and obeying Na- 
ture's laws, the defect which makes a chimney smoke at the wrong end — and 
you need never stand idle, nor long await remunerating employment." 

TO AN INQIHEING SLAYEHOLDEE. 

" It seems to us that a conscientious man, convinced of the wrong of slave- 
holding, should begin the work of redressing that wong at once. And if we 
were in our correspondent's place, and the laws of that State forbade emanci- 
pation on- her soil and the teaching of slaves, we should remove with them at 
once to some convenient locality where no such tyrannical statutes existed. 
Then (or on our old plantation, if the laws did not forbid) we should say to 

18* 



418 POSITION AND INFLUENCl? OF HORACE GREELEY. 

those slaves : ' You are free, and may leave if you choose ; but I advise you 
to stay with me till I shall have taught you how tc use and enjoy your free- 
dom. I will either myself teach you two hours daily, or I will employ some 
3ompetent person to do so ; and I will share fairly with you the proceeds of 
my land and your labor. At the year's end, I will settle fairly with you, and 
any one who chooses may then take his portion and leave, while I with those 
who remain will endeavor to raise a better crop next year. I think you can 
all earn more, live better, and save more, by staying with me than by going 
off; if you don't think so, go ; or, if you stay now, go whenever you shall 
come to think so. But while you stay here, I must be obeyed ; and any one 
who don't obey me and behave himself will have to leave.' 

"Now we feel confident that a slaveholder who should adopt this course and 
firmly pursue it, would soon have the finest plantation and the best crops in 
his county — keeping all his good blacks and getting rid of the bad ones, and 
tvith all his laborers workmg under the stimulus of personal interest, and im- 
pelled by pride to make as good a show as possible in the settlement at the 
end of the year. "We believe the great majority of any planter's slaves 
might thus be quietly educated into fitness for freedom and self-direction, as 
well as into a competent knowledge of letters and the elemental arts, while 
the planter would find himself, at ten years' end, not only wiser but actually 
richer than if he had continued to hold his laborers in hopeless slavery. Rely 
on it, friend ! - it can never be dangerous nor impolitic to do right ; and what 
Washington, John Randolph, and many other eminent Southrons saw fit to 
do on their death-beds you may safely and wisely do while you live." 



TO COUNTET EDITORS. 

" "We fear there are some Country editors who do not clearly perceive and 
improve the advantages of their position. If they would only make their pa- 
pers the vigilant gleaners of all local intelligence, the fosterers of local inter- 
ests, local institutes for promoting knowledge, «fec., Ac, — above all, if they 
would stop publishing so many frivolous stories and other mere transcripts 
from the City Magazines and Journals, filling their columns instead with ac- 
counts of the latest and most valuable discoveries and improvements in Ag- 
riculture, the Arts and all branches of practical Science, they would have an 
abundance of subscribers, and could not be ' destroyed ' even though City Edi- 
tors were so 'unprincipled' as to give their papers away and pay the postage. 
Only make your papers what they should be, and the people of your vicinity 
cannot afford to do without them. 

" Do these remarks offend any ? They surely ought not, for they are dictated 
by a sincere desire to benefit. "We learned what little we know of our busi- 
ness mainly in ' sticking type,' Ac, for various Country papers, and ought to 
know something about thorn. We have an earnest desire that they should 



HIS PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 419 

deserve a generous support and receive it, for we know how essential a good 
Country Press is." 

ADVEETISING AND CASH. 

" Extensive Advertising of itself is morally certain to work a revolution in 
trade, by driving thousands of the easy-going out of it, and concentrating bus- 
iness in the hands of the few who know how to obtain and keep it. Unite with 
this the substitution of cash for credit, and one-fifth of those now engaged in 
trade will amply suflace to do the whole — and will soon have it to do. The rev- 
olution is already begun." 

IN PEACE, PREPAEE FOR WAR. 
" It is not true that our best security for peace is keeping up an army at a 
cost of $15,000,000 a year to the people. All that we need are iron, lead, men, 
good schools, and good roads. There is more of military capability for de- 
fense in one railroad than in all the fortifications from Boston to Charleston. 
No ; we want the legislation that will make the country independent and pros- 
perous ; we want the money-changers driven from the temple ; in each State, 
if you will, a school for the difi"usion of the science of civil engineering and 
military science, to convert our people in case of need into ' disciplined sol- 
diers.' It does indeed behoove us in peace to prepare for war ; but this is all 
the preparation we want." 

TO COUNTRY MERCHANTS. 
" The merchant's virtue should be not merely negative and obstructive — it 
should be actively beneficent. He should use opportunities afforded by his 
vocation to foster agricultural and mechanical improvement, to advance the 
cause of education and diffuse the principles not only of virtue but of refine- 
ment and correct taste. He should be continually on the watch for whatever 
seems calculated to instruct, ennoble, refine, dignify and benefit the commu- 
nity in which he lives. He should be an early and generous patron of useful 
inventions and discoveries, so far as his position and means will permit. Ho 
should be a regular purchaser of new and rare books, such as the majority 
will not buy, yet ought to read, with a view to the widest dissemination of the 
truths they unfold. If located in the country, he should never visit the city 
to replenish his stock without endeavoring to bring back something that will 
afford valuable suggestions to his customers and neighbors. If these are in 
good part farmers, and no store in the vicinity is devoted especially to this 
department, he should be careful to keep a supply of the best plows and other 
implements of farming, as well as the choicest seeds, cuttings, &c., and those 
fertilizing substances best adapted to the soil of his township, or most advan- 
tageously transported thither ; and those he should be very willing to sell at 
cost, especially to the poor or the penuriois, in order to encourage their gon 



420 POSITION AND INTFLUENCE t>F HORACE GREELEY. 

eral acceptance and use. Though he make no profit directly on the sale of 
these, he is indirectly but substantially benefited by whatsoever shall increase 
the annual production of his township, and thus the ability of his customers 
to purchase and consume his goods. The merchant whose customers and 
neighbors are enabled to turn oflF three, five, seven or nine hundred dollars' 
worth of produce per annum from farms which formerly yielded but ene or 
two hundred dollars' worth, beyond the direct consumption of their occupants, 
is in the true and safe road to competence and wealth if he knows how to 
manage his business. Every wild wood or waste morass rendered arable and 
fruitful, every field made to grow fifty bushels of grain per acre, where but 
fifteen or twenty were formally realized, is a new tributary to the stream of hii 
trade, and so clearly conducive to his prosperity." 

TENEMENT HOUSES. 

"The wretched, tumble-down rookeries now largely inhabited by the poor 
of our city are horribly wasteful in every way — wasteful of space, of prop- 
erty, of health, of life. Sweep away all these kennels on a block — say about 
Elizabeth or Stanton street, and build up in their stead a substantial struc- 
ture, six to eight stories high, with basement and sub-cellar, the whole divided 
into rooms and suites of rooms for families and single persons, with baths, 
wash-houses, refectories, &c., in the basement, and public and private parlors, 
library, reading-room, &c., on the second floors. Let the first floor for stores 
or shops, and a part of the second for offices if required ; put the whole build- 
ing in charge of some responsible person disqualified for rugged labor, to be 
let at reasonable rates, payable monthly in advance — the highest story not 
more than fifty cents per bed-room. Such an edifice (economizing the space 
now required for cooking, washing, yard-room, &c.) might aff'ord accommoda- 
tions to families at $100 to §200, according to size and location ; while two 
seamstresses might have an attic in common for one dollar each per month. 
As each family could hire a parlor or bed-room (retained for this purpose) when- 
ever it had company, no one need hire regularly any more room than it abso- 
lutely needed, while a large square in the center of the block should be embel- 
lished with trees and shrubbery, gravel-walks, grass-plat and fountain. One 
Buch edifice, filled with tenants and paying ten per cent, to its owners, with a 
liberal margin for repairs, would very soon be imitated and improved upon, 
until our whole laboring population would be far better lodged than they now 
are, at half the expense, while room would be made on our Island for thrice 
the population it can stow away under the present architectural anarchy. Pes- 
tilence would be all but rendered impossible by this building reform." 

These paragraphs, selected from more than a hundred of similar 
'jendencv, will show ])etter than ever so much statement by another 



APPEARANCE MANNERS HABITS. 421 

hand, what the nature of Horace Greeley's influence is upon the 
affairs of his time, and upon the conduct of those "who value his 
opinion. That his practice and his preaching correspond, the reader 
is aware. He Tcnows whereof he aflirms, and his message is exactly 
suited to our case ; hence, its power. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

APPEARANCE — ^MANNERS — HABITS. 

His person and countenance— Phrenological developments— His rustic manners— Town 
eccentricities— Horace Greeley in Broadway— 'Horatius' at church— Horace Greeley 
at home. 

Horace Greeley stands five feet ten and a half inches, in 
his stockings. He weighs one hundred and forty-five pounds. 
Since his return from Europe in 1851, he has increased in weight, 
and promises to attain, in due time, something of the dignity which 
belongs to amplitude of person. He stoops considerably, not from 
age, but from a constitutional pliancy of the back-bone, aided by 
his early habit of incessant reading. In walking, he swings or 
sways from side to side. Seen from behind, he looks, as he walks 
with head depressed, bended back, and swaying gait, like an old 
man ; an illusion which is heightened, if a stray lock of white hair 
escapes from under his hat. But the expression of his face is sin- 
gularly and engagingly youthful. His complexion is extremely fair, 
and a smile plays ever upon his countenance. His head, measured 
round the organs of Individuality and Philoprogenitiveness, is twen- 
ty-three and a half inches in circumference, which is considerably 
larger than the average. His forehead is round and full, and rises 
into a high and ample dome. The hair is white, inclining to red at 
the ends, and thinly scattered over the head. Seated in company, 
with his hat off, he looks not unlike the * Philosopher' he is often 
called ; no one could take him for a common man. 

According to the Phrenological Journal, his brain is tery large, 
in the right place, well balanced, and of the best form, long, nar- 



422 APPEARANCE MAIWERS HABITS. 

row, and high. It indicates, says tEe same authority, small aiiimal- 
ity and selfishness, extreme benevolence, natural nobleness, and loft- 
mess of aim. His controlling organs are, Adhesiveness, Benevo- 
lence, Firmness, and Conscientiousness. Benevolence is small ; De- 
structiveness and Acquisitiveness less. Amativeness and Philopro- 
genitiveness are fully developed. The Love of Approbation is prom- 
inent ; Self-Esteem not so. Resistance and Moral Courage are very 
full ; Secretiveness full ; Cautiousness large ; Continuity small ; 
Ideality fair ; Taste tery small ; Imitation small ; Mirthfulness very 
large ; Eventuality and Comparison large ; Language good ; Rea- 
soning better ; Agreeableness deficient; Intuition great; Tempera- 
ment active. His body, adds the Phrenologist, is not enough for 
his head. Time, as I have just remarked, is remedying that. 

In manner, Horace Greeley is still a rustic. The Metropolis has 
not been able to make much impression upon him He lives amidst 
the million of his fellow-citizens, in their various uniforms, an unas- 
similated man. 

Great, very great, as we all perceive, is the assimilating power of 
great cities. A youth comes here to New York, awkward, ill-dress- 
ed, bashful, and capable of being surprised. He visits his country 
home, after only a few years' residence in the city, a changed being ; 
his clothes, his manners, his accent, and his affectations, are 'town- 
made.' His hair is shorter and more elaborately brushed ; his 
words are fewer and he utters them in a lower tone; his collar is 
higher; he wears strange things fastened in a curious way; he gets 
up late in the morning, and takes his sustenance with a fork. The 
country people, the younger ones at least, are rather overawed by 
him, and secretly resolve to have their next coat made like his. 
"What he calls his opinions, too, are not what they were. His talk 
is a languid echo of the undertone of conservative indifference 
which prevails in the counting-rooms where he has plied the assid- 
uous pen, or wagged the wheedling tongue. He is, in a word, 
another man. He is a stranger in his father's house. He comes 
back to town, and, as years roll on, 1 e hardens and sharpens into 
the finished citizen. 

It is so with most, but not with all. Some men there are — very 
few, yet some — who resist effectually, and to the last, the assimilat- 
ing influence of cities. These are the odditiss, the stared-at, the 



HORACE GREELEY IN BROADWAY. 423 

men of whom anecdotes are told. They are generally either much 
wiser, or else much more nearly mad than their fellow-citizens. 
Girard, the tough, sensible, benevolent banker of Philadelphia was 
an oddity; and so was that other Philadelphian who placed all his 
hopes of distinction upon his persistence in the practice of not 
wearing a hat. Franklin was an oddity ; and so was he who, 
says popular tradition, took his nightly repose in a lime-kiln, and 
never used a clothes-brush. It is best, perhaps, not to be odd ; and, 
certainly, the wisest man need not be. The saying of Goethe on 
this subject seems good and commendable, that people who are 
compelled to differ from the world in important things should take 
all the more pains to conform to it in things unimportant. Yet all 
large towns contain one or more— always one — of the eccentric 
sort. It is a way large towns have. 

I have seen Horace Greeley in Broadway on Sunday morning 
with a hole in his elbow and straws clinging to his hat. I have 
seen him asleep while Alboni was singing her grandest. When he 
is asked respecting his health, he answers sometimes by the single 
word ' stout,' and there the subject drops. He is a man who could 
save a Nation, but never learn to tie a cravat ; no, not if Brummell 
gave him a thousand lessons. 

The manner and style of the man, however, can best be shown 
by printing here two short pieces of narrative, which I chance to 
have in my possession. An enthusiastic youth, fresh from school 
and the country, came a few years ago to the city to see the lions. 
The following is a part of one of his letters home. He describes 
' Horatius ' at church, and does it well : 

"I have seen Horace Greeley, sister mine, and I am going to tell 
you all about it. 

" It is Sunday morning. The weather is] fine. The bells are 
ringing. People are going to church. Broadway, from Grace 
Church to the Battery, is fringed on both sides with a procession of 
bright-colored fellow-creatures moving with less than their usual 
languor, in the hope of not being too late at church. The steps of 
the crowd, I observe, for the first time, are audible ; for, no pro- 
fane vehicle, no omnibus, cart, hack, or wagon, drowns all other 
noises in their ceaseless thunder. Only a private carriage rolls 
along occasionally, laden with a family of the uppermost thousand, 



434 APPEARANCE MAN^ERtS — HABITS. 

bound for Trinity or St. George's, or the Brick Chapel, where Dr. 
Spring discourses of ' First Things' ^<? First Things. It is possible 
now, and safe, for the admiring stranger, your affectionate brother, 
to stand in the middle of the street, and to discover that it is per- 
fectly straight, from the rising ground above the Park to where the 
tallj^white spire of Grace Church, so strikingly terminates the beau- 
tiful promenade — a feat which no man hath been able to accom- 
plish on a week-day these thirty years. The sun upon this cloud- 
less morning brilliantly lights up the scene, and covers all things 
with glory. 

" I am among the church-goers, and I saunter down-town-wards. 
I make my observations on the passing throng, and marvel chiefly 
that, among so many countenances, so few should wear an express- 
ion of intelligence, so few even of bodily health, and wonder if, 
after all, the nineteenth century is really and truly so great a cen- 
tury as it thinks it is. But there is walking just before me a man 
whose contour, walk and attire, are strikingly different from those of 
every other person in the crowd, — a tall man, slightly made, with a 
stoop and shamble. I know not why it is, but I immediately 
take that man to be somebody^ a Western member of Congress, per- 
haps, and I am not at all surprised when I hear it whispered, 
' That 's Horace Greeley.' I prick up my ears, and resolve to fol- 
low him wherever he goes. 

" Horatius, let me assure you, is a person in whose mind there 
lingers none of childhood's reverence for the institution of Sunday 
clothes. Do not conclude from this circumstance that he is one of 
those superfine gentlemen who, in their magnanimous endeavor to 
differ from the profane vulgar, contrive to be as shabbily dressed on 
Sundays, when others dress in their best, as they are elegantly at- 
tired on Saturdays, when people in general are shabbiest. Hora- 
tius is no such person. No fine gentleman could be brought on any 
terms to appear in Broadway in the rig he wore on this occasion. 
My eye was first caught by his boots, which were coarse, large and 
heavy, such as dangle from the ceiling of a country store, such as 
'stalk a-field' when ploughmen go forth to plough. This particular 
pair can nevei\ in the whole course of their existence, have added 
one farthing to the colossal fortune of Day and Martin. They were 
spattered with mud, and so were the trowsers that. curtAildd ol 



ms DRESS. 425- 

rair proportions, huig over their tops. His hat is a large, black 
beaver, and it certainly has known no touch of the brush since its 
maker gave it the finishing twirl, and pronounced it good. It dif- 
fers from the hats of mankind in general, as an enraged porcupine 
differs from a porcupine whose evil passions slumber. It appears 
to have been thrown on his head, and has chanced to fall rather 
behind, like Sam Slick's. Fragments of straw adhere to the nap, 
as though the owner had been taking raiorning exercise in a stable. 
In truth, I hear that he lias little faith in ' Orange County,' and 
keeps a cow. A. very long, very loose, well-worn, white over-coat, 
with the collar standing up, and the long skirts flying behind, en- 
velopes the singular figure. This coat is long, apparently, because it 
was made a long time ago, before any Parisian or London tailor had 
from his back-shop issued to Christendom the mandate, ' Let the 

OVER-OOATS OF MANKIND BE WORN SHORT TILL FURTHER NOTICE.' 

There is, indeed, so little of the citizen in the appearance of the 
individual I am describing, that, if it were not Sunday, he would 
be taken, often must be taken, for a farmer just come to town 
upon a load of produce, who is now hurrying about the streets 
on errands for the good wife at home. 

" On he goes, and I at his heels. At the door of the building 
known as the Stuyvesant Institute, he enters. A slight change, 
I perceive, has taken place in the exterior of this edifice since I 
passed it yesterday. The Daguerreotype-cases and exhibition 
transparences have been removed, and over the door a sign- 
board, similar in style and cost to those which tell a hungry public 
where Family Baking is done at ten and two, announces, that 
here the Independent Christian Society holds its meetings, and that 
the seats are Free. Other sign-boards about the door set forth 
the same facts. Fired by curiosity, and emboldened by the promis- 
ed freedom of the seats, I enter, and find my way to the lecture 
room. 

" It is a semi-circular apartment of six hundred medical student 
capacity, slanting steeply downward to the lecturer's platform. It 
is early, and only a few of the Independent Christians have arrived. 
Horatius, I see, has taken the seat nearest the door, and is already 
absorbed in the perusal of a newspaper, the London Times. With 
his hat off and his coat thrown open, he looks quite a different per 



4 *-^<3 APPEARANCE MA^TNERS HABITS. 

son. True, the newly-revealed garments are no more ornamental 
than those I had already seen. It is clear that Beman's artistic 
hand bore no part in the production of that crumpled shirt, nor in 
the getting-up of that overlapping collar, nor in the frantic tie of 
that disconsolate neckerchief. But the eye of the stranger rests not 
upon these things ; they are remembered afterwards ; the stranger 
is taken up in the contemplation of that countenance, upon which 
Benignity's self has alighted, and sits enthroned on whitest ivory. 
Sucli a face, so fair, so good ! !N"o picture has caught its expression, 
at once youthful and venerable, at once feminine and manly. A 
smile, like that which plays over a baby's face when it dreams, 
rests ever on his countenance, and lends to it an indescribable 
charm. It is expressive of inward serenity, kindliness of nature, 
and blamelessness of life. 

" The congregation assembles, and the room becomes half full. 
The gentleman in the white coat continues to read. The preacher 
arrives, the ' Eev. T. L. Harris,' a slender, pale, dark-haired, black- 
eyed man, with the youthful look of seventeen. He glances at the 
extremely Independent Christian with the newspaper, as he brushes 
by, but receives no nod of recognition in return. He gains his place 
on the platform, stands up to begin, the people fumbling for their 
hymn-books. Horatius gives no sign ; the Times possesses him 
wholly. Will he read all through the service, and disconcert the 
young minister ? No. At the first word from the preacher's lips, 
he drops the paper upon the bench, and addresses himself to — what 
do you think ? Meditation? Finding the hymn? Looking about 
at the congregation ? None of these. Leaning his white head upon 
his fair, slender hand, and his elbow upon the back of the pew, he 
closes his eyes, and instantaneously goes to sleep ! Not Wellington, 
nor Napoleon, nor Ney, nor Julius Caesar, ever, after the longest 
fight, was sooner in the land of dreams. To all appearance — 
mind, I do not say it was so, but to all appearance — he was asleep 
before the hymn had been read to the end. Overtasked nature will 
assert and have her rights, and the weary wanderer find repose at 
last. Horatius neither stands at the singing, nor during the prayer 
does he assume any of the singular attitudes which are said to be 
those of devotion, nor does he pay the slightest attention to the ser- 
mon, though it was a truly extraordinary performance, displaying a 



HORACE GREELEY AT HOME. 427 

mighty sweep of intelligence, an amazing fervency of hero-worship, 
and an uneqnaled splendor of illustration. It was delivered with 
a vehemence of aifection that made the speaker's frail frame trem- 
ble, as though the spirit it encased were struggling to escape its 
tenement. And still the editor slept. Not a word of the sermon 
did he seem to hear, unless it was the last word ; for, at the very 
last, he roused his drowsy powers, and as Mr. Harris sat down, 
Horace Greeley woke up. Refreshed by his slumbers, he looks 
about him, and, hearing the premonitory tinkle of the collection, he 
thrusts his hand into his pocket, draws forth a small silver coin, 
which he drops into the box, where it shines among the copper 
like a ' good deed in a naughty world.' The service over, he lingers 
not a moment, and I catch my last glimpse of him as he posts down 
Broadway toward the Tribune oflBce, the white coat-tails streaming 
behind him, his head thrust forward into the Future, his body 
borne along by the force of to-morrow's leading article. His ap- 
pearance is decidedly that of a man of progress, and of progress 
Against the wind, for his hat cannot quite keep up with his head. 
As he threads his way through the well-dressed throng, gentlemen 
tell ladies who he is, and both turn and gaze after him, till the 
ghostly garment is lost behind the many-colored clouds of silk and 
caslimere." 

Thus wrote the enthusiastic, lion-loving youth. The scene now 
changes, and the time is put four or five years forward. Mr. Gree- 
ley, in the winter season, is " at home" on Saturday evenings to all 
callers. A gentleman attended one of the Saturday evenings last 
winter, took notes of what he saw and heard, which he has since 
kindly written out for insertion here : 

" In point of pretension, Horace Greeley's house in Nineteenth 
street is about midway between the palaces of the Fifth Avenue 
and the hovels of the Five Points. It is one of a row of rather 
small houses, two and a half stories high, built of brick, and paint- 
ed brown ; the rent of which, I was told, is likely to be about seven 
hundred dollars a year. It was a chilly, disagreeable evening, I 
went early, hoping to have a little talk with the editor before other 
company should arrive. I rang the bell, and looked through the 
pane at the side of the door. The white coat was not upon its ac- 
customed peg, and the old hat stuffed with newspapers was not in 



-128 APPEARANCE MANNERS HABITS. 

its nsnal pLace at tlie bottom of the liat-stand. Tberefoie 1 knew 
tliat the wearer of these articles was not at home, before the 'girl* 
told me so ; but, upon her informing me that he was expected in a 
few minutes, I concluded to go in and wait. The entrance-hall is 
exceedingly narrow, and the stairs, narrower still, begin at a few 
feet from the door, affording room only for the hat-stand and a 
chair. The carpet on the stairs and hall was common in pattern, 
coarse in texture. A lady, the very picture of a prosperous farm- 
er's wife, with her clean delaine dress and long, wide, white apron, 
stood at the head of the stairs, and came down to meet me. She 
lighted the gas in the parlors, and then, summoned by the crying 
of a child up stairs, left me to my observations. 

" Neither I nor anybody else ever saw parlors so curiously fur- 
nished. There are three of them, and the inventory of the furniture 
would read thus : — One small mahogany table at the head of the 
front parlor ; one lounge in ditto ; eleven light cane-chairs in front 
and back parlors ; one book-case of carved black- walnut in the 
small apartment behind the back parlor ; and, except the carpets, 
not another article of furniture in either room. But the walls were 
almost covered with paintings; the mantel^pieces were densely 
peopled with statuettes, busts, and medallions ; in a corner on a 
pedestal stood a beautiful copy of (I believe) Powers' Proserpine in 
marble ; and various other works of art were disposed about the 
floor or leaned against the walls. Of the quality of the pictures I 
could not, in that fight, form an opinion. The subjects of more 
tlian half of them were religious, such as, the Virgin rapt; Peter, 
lovest thou me ? Christ crowned with thorns ; Mary, Joseph, and 
Child ; Virgin and Child ; a woman praying before an image in a 
cathedral ; Mary praying ; Hermit and Skull ; and others. There 
were some books upon the table, among them a few annuals con- 
taining contributions by Horace Greeley, volumes of Burns, Byron, 
and Hawthorne, Downing's Rural Essays, West's complete Analysis 
of the Holy Bible, and Ballou's Voice of Universalism. 

"I waited an hour. There came a double and decided ring at 
the bell. No one answered the summons. Another and most tre 
mendous ring brought the servant to the door, and in a moment, 
the face of the master of the house beamed into the room. He 
apologized thus : — * I ought to have been here sooner, but I could n't. 



1 



HORACE GREELEY AT HOME. 429 

He flung off his overcoat, hung it up in the hall, and looking into 
the parlor, said : ' Just let me run up and see my babies one min- 
ute ; I have n't seen 'em all daj^, you know ;' and he sprung up the 
stairs two steps at a time. I heard him talk in high glee to the 
children in the room above for just ' one minute,' and then he re- 
joined me. He began to talk something in this style : 

" ' Sit down. I have had a rough day of it— eaten nothing since 
breakfast — just got in from ray farm — been up the country lecturing 
— started from Goshen this morning at five — broke down — crossed 
the river on the ice — had a hard time of it — ice a good deal broken 
and quite dangerous — lost the cars on this side — WQni dogging oxomi^ 
to hire a conveyance — got to Sing Sing — went over to my farm and 
transacted my business there as well as I could in the time — started 
for the city, and as luck would have it, they had taken off the four 
o'clock train — did n't know that I should get down at all — harnessed 
up my own team, and pushed over to Sing Sing again — ^hadn't 
gone far before snap went the whippletree — got another though — 
and reached Sing Sing just two minutes before the cars came along 
— I 've just got in— my feet are cold — let 's go to the fire.' 

" With these words, he rose quickly and went into the back room, 
not to the fire-place, but to a corner near the folding door, where 
hot air gushed up from a cheerless round hole in the floor. His 
dress, as I now observed, amply corroborated his account of the 
day's adventures — shirt all crumpled, cravat all awry, coat all 
wrinkles, stockings about his heels, and general dilapidation. 

" I said it was not usual at the "West to go into a corner to warm 
one's feet ; to which he replied by quoting some verses of Holmes 
which I did not catch. I entreated him to go to tea, as he must be 
hungry, but he refused 'pine blank.' The conversation fell upon 
poetry. He said there was one more book he should like to make 
before he died, and that was a Song-Booh for Me People. There 
was no collection of songs in existence which satisfied his idea of 
what a popular song-book ought to be. He should like to compile 
one, or help do it. He said he had written verses himself, but was 
no poet ; and bursting into a prolonged peal of laughter, he added, 
that when he and Park Benjamin were editing the New Yorker, 
he wrote some verses for insertion in that paper, and showed them 
to ' Park,' and ' Pai-k ' roared out, ' Thunder and lightning, Greeley, 



430 APPEARANCE— MANNERS HABITS. 

do you call that poetry V Speaking of a certain well-known ver- 
sifier, lie said : ' He 's a good fellow enough, but he can't write po- 
etry, and if had remained in Boston he would have killed 

him, he takes criticism so hard. As for me, I like a little opposi- 
tion, I enjoy it, I can't understand the feeling of those thin-skinned 
people.' 

" I said I had been looking to see what books he preferred should 
lie on his table. ' I don't prefer,' he said, ' I read no books. I 
hive been trying for years to get a chance to read Wilhelm Meister, 
and other books. TFas Goethe a dissolute man ?' To Avhich I re 
plied with a sweeping negative. This led the conversation to biog- 
raphy, and he remarked, ' How many wooden biographies there are 
about. They are of no use. There are not half a dozen good biog- 
raphies in our language. Yon know what Carlyle says : ' I want to 
know what a man eats, what time he gets up, what color his stock- 
ings are ?' (His, on this occasion, were white, with a hole in each 
heel.) ' There 's no use in any man's writing a biography unless he 
can tell what no one else can tell.' Seeing me glance at his pictures, 
he said he had brought them from Italy, but there was only one 
or two of them that he boasted of. 

" A talk upon politics ensued. He said he had had enough of 
party politics. He would speak for temperance, and labor, and ag- 
riculture, and some other objects, but he was not going to stump 
the country any more to promote the interest of party or candidates. 
In alluding to political persons he used the utmost freedom of vitu- 
peration, but there was such an evident absence of anger and bitter- 
ness on his part, that if the vituperated individuals had overheard 
.the conversation, they would not have been offended, but amused. 
Speaking of association, he said : ' Ah ! our workingmen must be 
better educated : we must have better schools ; they must learn to 
confide in one another more; then they will associate.' Then, 
laughing, he added : ' If you know anybody afiQicted with democ- 
racy, tell him to join an association ; tliat will cure him if anything 
will ; still, association will triumph in its day, and in its own way.' 

In reply to G 's definition of Webster as ' a petty man, with 

petty objects, sought by petty means,' he said : ' I call him a 

; but his last reply to Hayne was the biggest speech yet 

made ; it 's only so long,' pointing to a place on his arm, ' but it's 



I 



HORACE GREELEY AT HOME. 431 

very great.' Another remark on another subject ehcited from him 
the energetic assertion that the ' invention of the key was the dev- 
il's masterpiece.' Alluding to a recent paragraph of his, I said ! 
thought it the best piece of English he had ever written. ' No,' he 
replied, ' there 's a bad repetition in it of the word soder in the same 
sentence ; I can write better English than that.' I told him of 
the project of getting half a dozen of the best men and women 
of the country to join in preparing a series of school reading 
books. He said, ' They would be in danger of shooting over the 
heads of the children.' To which I replied : 'No; it is common 
men who do that ; great men are simple, and akin to children.' 

" A little child, four years old, with long flaxen hair and ruddy 
cheeks, came in and said, 'mother wants you up stairs.' He caught 
it up in his arms with every manifestation of excessive fondness, 
saying, ' No, you rogue, it 's you that want him ;' and the child 
wriggled out of his arms and ran away. 

" As I was going, some ladies came in, and I remained a moment 
longer, at his request. He made a languid and quite indescribabla 
attempt at introduction, merely mentioning the names of the la- 
dies with a faint doh at each. One of them asked a question about 
Spiritualism. He said, 'I have paid no attention to that subject for 
two years. I became satisfied it would lead to no good. In fact, I 
am so taken up with the things of this world, that I have too little 
time to spend on the affairs of the other.' She said, ' a distinction 
ought to be made between those who investigate the phenomena 
as phenomena, and those who embrace them fimatically.' ' Yes,' 
said he, ' I have no objection to their being investigated by those 
who have more time than I have.' 'Have you heard,' asked the 
lady, 'of the young man who personates Shakspeare?' 'No,' he 
replied, ' but I am satisfied there is no folly it will not run into. 
Then he rose, and said, 'Take off your things and go up stairs. 
must get some supper, for I have to go to that meeting at the Tab 
ernacle, to-night,' (anti-Nebraska.) 

"As I passed the hat-stand in the hall, I said, 'Here is that im- 
mortal white coat.' He smiled and said, 'People suppose it's the 
same old coat, but it isn't.' I looked questioningly, and he contin- 
ued, 'The original white coat came from Ireland. An emigrant 
brought it out; he wanted money and I wanted a coat ; so I '"jught 



432 APPEARANCE MANNERS HABITS. 

it of him for twenty dollars, and it was the best coat I ever had. 
They do work icell^ in the old countries ; not in such a hurry as 
we do.' 

" The door closed, and I was alone with the lamp-post. In another 
hour, Horace Greeley, after such a day of hunger and fatigue, was 
speaking to an audience of three thousand people in the Tabernacle." 
These narratives, with other glimpses previously afforded, will 
perhaps give the reader a sufficient insight into Horace Greeley's 
hurried, tumultuous way of life. 

Not every day, however, is as hurried and tumultuous as this. 
Usually, he rises at seven o'clock, having returned from the office 
about midnight. He takes but two meals a day, breakfast at eight, 
dinner when he can get it, generally about four. Tea and coffee 
he drinks, never ; cocoa is his usual beverage. To depart from his 
usual routine of diet, or to partake of any viand which experience 
has shown to be injurious, he justly denominates a 'sin,' and 
' groans ' over it with very sincere repentance. A public dinner is 
one of his peculiar aversions ; and, indeed, it may be questioned 
wliether human nature ever presents itself in a light more despica- 
ble than at a public dinner, particularly towards the close of the 
entertainment. Mr. Greeley is a regular subscriber to the New- 
York Tribune, and pays for it at the usual rate of one shilling a 
week. As soon as it arrives in the morning, he begins the perusal 
of that interesting paper, and examines every department of it with 
great care, bestowing upon each typographical error a heart-felt 
anathema. His letters arrive. They vary in number from twenty 
to fifty a day ; every letter requiring an answer, is answered forth- 
with ; and, not unfrequently, twenty replies are written and dis- 
patched by him in one morning. In the intervals of work, there 
is much romping with the children. But two are left to him out 
of six. Toward noon, or soon after, the editor is on his way to his 
office. 

Mr. Greeley has few intimate friends and no cronies. He gives 
no parties, attends few; has no pleasures, so called; and suffers lit- 
tle pain. In some respects, he is exceedingly frank ; in others, no 
man is more reserved. For example — his pecuniary affairs, around 
which most men throw an awful mystery, he has no scruples about 
revealing to any passing stranger, or even to the public; and that 



HIS PECULIARITIKfi 433 

in the fullest detail. But he can keep a secret with any man living, 
and he seldom talks about what interests him most. Margaret Ful- 
ler had a passion for looking at the naked souls of her friends ; and 
she often tried to get a peep into the inner bosom of Horace Gree- 
ley ; but he kept it buttoned close against her observation. Indeed, 
the kind of revelation in which she delighted, he entirely detests ; 
as, probably, every healthy mind does. 

He loves a joke, and tells a comic story with great glee. His 
cheerfulness is habitual, and probably he never knew two consecu- 
tive hours of melancholy in his life. His manner is sometimes ex- 
ceedingly ungracious ; he is not apt to suppress a yawn in the pres- 
ence of a conceited bore; but if the bore is a bore innocently, lie 
submits to the infliction with a surprising patience. He has a sin- 
gular hatred of bungling, and rates a bungler sometimes with ex- 
traordinary vehemence. But he 

" Carries anger, as tlie flint bears fire ; 
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
And straight is cold again." 

He clings to an opinion, however, or a prejudice, with the tenac- 
ity of his race ; and has rarely been brought to own himself in the 
wrong. If he changes his opinion, which sometimes he does, he 
may show it by altered conduct, seldom by a confession in words. 

His peculiarities of dress arise from two causes: 1. He is at all 
times deeply absorbed in the duties of his vocation, and cannot 
think of his dress without an effort : 2. He has (I think) the cor- 
rect republican feeling, that no man should submit to have menial 
offices of a personal nature performed for him by another man. I 
mean, euch offices as blacking boots, brushing clothes, etc. 

19 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

CONCLUSION. 

If Horace Greeley were a flower, botanists would call Lim ' sin- 
gle,' and examine him with interest. Botanists find small pleasure 
in those plants, the pride of the garden, which have all gone to 
flower. They call them ' monsters.' Such are not beautiful to the 
eye of science, because they are not harmonious, culture having de- 
stroyed the natural proportion of their parts. Passing by, with in- 
diflerence or disgust, the perfumed dandies and painted belles of 
the flower-garden, the botanist hangs with delight over the simple 
denizens of the wood-side and the wood-path. Horace Greeley is. 
' single.' He is what the Germans sometimes style ' a nature.' He 
is not complicated nor many-sided. He is the way he grew. Other 
men are like the walking-sticks in a bazaar. He was cut from the 
woods. The bark is on him, the knots are not pared smooth, the 
crooks have not been bent out, and all the polish he shows is deriv- 
ed from use, not varnish. He could say the first part of the cate- 
chism without telling a lie : Who made you ? God. "Walking-sticks 
often make the same reply, but not with truth. To say of most 
men in civilized countries that God made them, is rank flattery. 

The character of a man is derived, 1, from his breed ; 2, from his 
breeding ; 3, from his country ; 4, from his time. Horace Greeley's 
poetry, his humanity, his tenderness, all that makes him lovable 
and pleasing, his mother gave him, as her ancestors had given them 
her, with her Scottish blood. His nice sense of honor, his perse- 
verance, his anxious honesty, his tenacity, all that renders him ef- 
fective and reliable, he derived from his father, to whose English 
blood such qualities belong. He passed his childhood in republican, 
puritan New England, in a secluded rural region. Thence came his 
habits of reflection, his readiness, his independence, his rustic tough- 
ness and roughness. He is of this generation, and therefore he shares 
in the humanitary spirit which yearns in the bosotn of every tru« 



INTEREST IN HUMAN WELFARE. 435 

Saxon man that lives. He escaped the schools, and so passed 
through childhood uncorrupt, ' his own man,' not formed' upon a 
pattern. He was not trained up — he grew up. Like a tree, he was 
left to seek the nourishment he needed and could appropriate. His 
breeding was unspeakably fortunate. It helped him much, hindered 
him little ; and the result was, a man, not perfect indeed, very im- 
perfect, as all men are, but a man, natural, peculiar, original, inter- 
esting; a man dear to other men, a man to whom other men are 
dear. 

Of the countless gifts which God bestows upon man, the rarest, 
the divinest, is an ability to take supreme interest in human welfare. 
This has been called Genius ; but what is here meant is more than 
genius ; it includes genius ; it is the parent and inspirer of genius ; 
it is above genius. If any pious soul will accurately ascertain 
wliat it is in the character of the Man Christ Jesus, the contempla- 
tion of which fills his heart with rapture and his eyes with tears, 
that pious soul will know what is here intended by the expression 
' feupreme interest in human welfare.' The concurrent instinct of 
mankind, in all ages, in every clime, proclaims, that this, what- 
ever it be named, is the divinest quahty known to human nature. 
It is that which man supremely honors ; and well he may. Most 
of us, alarmed at the dangers that beset our lives, distracted with 
cares, blinded with desire to secure our own safety, are absorbed in 
schemes of personal advantage. A few men go apart, ascend a 
height, survey the scene with serene, unselfish eye, and make dis- 
coveries which those in the heat of the struggle could never ar- 
rive at. But for such, the race of men would long ago have extir- 
pated itself in its mad, blind strife. But for such, it would never 
have been discovered that what is not good for the whole swarm 
\is not good for a single bee, that no individual can be safe in wel- 
fare, while any other individual is not. 

Genius ? No. That is not the word. Dr. Arnold was not a man 
of genius. Carlyle is not a man of genius. But Great Britain 
owes more to them than to all the men of genius that have lived 
since Cromwell's time. Such men difier from the poets and authors 
of their day, precisely in the same way, though not, perhaps, in 
the same degree, as the Apostles differed from Cicero, Seneca, and 
Virgil. Between the Clays and Websters of this country and Horace 



430 CONCLUflOK. 

Greeley, the difference is similar in Mnd. Horace Greeley, Thomas 
Carlyle, ^nd Dr. Arnold, have each uttered much which, perhaps, 
the world will not finally accept. Such men seem particularly lia- 
ble to a certain class of mistakes. Bat, says Goethe*B immortal 
maxim, "The Spirit in which we act is the highest matter" — and it 
is the contagious, the influencing matter. " See how these Chris- 
tians love one another." That was what made converts ! 

A young man of liberal soul, ardent mind, small experience, 
limited knowledge, no capital, and few friends, is likely to be ex- 
ceedingly perplexed on his entrance upon the stage of hfe. The 
difficulties in his own path, if he has a path, and the horrors that 
overshadow his soul, if he has not, call his attention in the most 
forcible manner to the general condition of mankind. 

How unjust, how unnecessary, how inexplicable, it seems to his 
innocent mind, that a human being should be denied an opportu- 
nity to do the work for which he is fitted, to attain the blessed- 
ness of which he is capable ! Surely, he thinks, a man is at least 
entitled to a Faie Stakt in the race of life, and to a course free 
from all obstructions except such as belong to the very nature of 
life. What a mockery, he thinks, is this Freedom which is said 
to be our birthright, while the Freedom which results from assured 
plenty, right education, and suitable employment, is attainable only 
by an inconsiderable few? He is told, and he is glad to hear it, 
that the Prince of Wales and a few other boys, here and there in 
the world, are severely trained, scientifically taught, conveniently 
lodged, and bountifully provided for in every respect. And he 
learns with pleasure, that the Duke of Devonshire, and sundry 
other nobles, princes and millionaires, live in the midst of the means 
of delight and improvement, surrounded by every beautiful object 
known to art, at convenient access to all the sources of instruc- 
tion. Free and far, over wide, enchanting domains, they range at 
their good pleasure, and wander when they will through groves, 
gardens, and conservatories. And far above all this, it is in their 
power deliberately to choose what they will do in their day and 
generation, and to bestow upon their offspring the same priceless 
freedom of choice. The rest of mankind are ' born thralls,' who 
toil from youth to hoary age, apparently for no other end than to 



LIFE AND ITS DUTIES. 437 

keep aloft on the splendid summit of affairs a few mortals of aver- 
age merit. . 

Yet it is clear to our young friend, that whatever of essential 
dignity and substantial good is possessed by a few individuals, like 
those just named, it is within the compass of human talent and the 
- Creator's bounty, to afford to all the family of man ! In the con- 
templation of their possibility, and comparing it with the actual 
state of things, some of the finest spirits have gone distracted. 
Others have devoted themselves to impracticable schemes. Others 
have turned misanthropic, and others, philanthropic. Others have 
arrived, by degrees, at a variety of conclusions, of which the fol- 
lowing are few: that man is rather a weak creature, and it is 
doubtful whether it is worth while to take much interest in liim ; 
that, as a rule, man enjoys exactly as much freedom as he becomes 
fit for, and no more ; that, except a man have not the necessaries 
of life, poverty is no evil ; that to most men increase of possessions 
is not of the slightest advantage ; that the progress of mankind in 
wisdom and self-command is so slow, that after two thousand years 
of Christianity, it is not self-evident that any true advance has been 
made, though the fact of an advance is probably susceptible of 
proof; that whatever is, is the best that can be in the circum- 
stances ; and finally, that a man may mind his own business, and 
let the world alone. 

Others, on the contrary, come to very different conclusions. 
They perceive that man is so great, and wondrous, and divine a 
creature, that it is irrational, in fact impossible, to take a real and 
deep interest in anything not connected with his welfare. They 
believe in the liourly progress of the species. They discover that 
the fruits of a good life, a good deed, a good word, can no more be 
lost than the leaves are lost when they wither and disappear. They 
long for the time, and confidently expect it, and would fain do some- 
thing to hasten it, when Man will come forth from his dismal den 
of selfishness, awake to the truth that the interest of each individ- 
ual and the interest of the community are identical, strive with 
his fellow for the general good, and so cease to be a Prince in exile, 
in disguise, in sackcloth, and ascend the throne that is rightfully his, 
and sway, with magnificence and dignity worthy of him, his great 
inheritance. From the general tenor of Horace Greeley's worda 



438 CONCLUSION. 

and actions, dnring the last t^-enty years, I infer that this is 
something like his habitual view of life and its duties. Shall he he 
jDraised for this ? Let ns envy him rather. Only such a man knows 
anything of the luxury of being alive. " Horace Greeley," said an 
oM friend of his, " is the only happy man I have ever known." 

The great object of Horace Greeley's personal ambition has been 
to make the Tribune the best newspaper that ever existed, and the 
leading newspaper of the United States. To a man inflamed with 
an ambition like this, the temptation to prefer the Popular to the 
Eight, the Expedient to tbe Just, comes with peculiar, with un- 
equaled force. No "^^rsuit is so fascinating, none so absorbing, 
none so diflScult. The ^mpctition is keen, the struggle intense, the 
labor continuous, the reward doubtful and distant. And yet, it is 
a fact, that on nearly every one of its special subjects, the Tribune 
has stood opposed to the general feeling of the country. Its course 
on Slavery has excluded it from the Slave States; and if that had 
not, its elevated tone of thought would ; for the southern mind is 
inferior to the northern. "When the whole nation was in a blaze of 
enthusiasm about the triumphs of the Mexican war, it was not easy 
even for a private person to refrain from joining in the general huz- 
za. But not for one day was the Tribune forgetful of the un- 
worthiness of those triumphs, and the essential meanness of the 
conflict. . There were clergymen who illuminated their houses on 
the occasion of those disgraceful victories — one, I am told, who had 
preached a sermon on the unchristian character of the Tribune. 

Ml". Greeley wrote, the other day : 

" We are every day greeted by some sage friend with a caution against the 
certain wreck of our influence and prosperity which we defy by opposing the 
secret political cabal commonly known as ' the Know-Nothings.' One writes us 
that he procured one hundred of our present subscribers, and will prevent the 
renewal of their subscriptions in case we persist in our present course ; another 
wonders why we will destroy our influence by resisting the popular current, 
when we might do so much good by falling in with it and guiding it and so on. 

" To the first of these gentlemen we say — * Sir, we give our time and labor 
to the production of The Tribune, because we believe that to be our sphere of 
usefulness ; but we shall be most happy to abandon journalism for a less anx- 
ious, exacting, exhausting vocation, whenever we are fairly and honorably 
released from this. You do not frighten us, therefore, by any such base ap- 
peals to our presumed selfishness and avarice ; for if you could induce not 



Ills SUCCESSES. 



439 



merely your hundred but every one of our subscribers to desert us, wo should 
cheerfully accept such a release from our jjresent duties and try to earn a live- 
lihood in some easier way. So please go ahead 1' 

"And now to our would-be friend who suggests that we are wrecking our 
influence by breasting the popular current : ' Good Sir ! do you forget that 
whatever influence or consideration The Tribune has attained has been won, 
not by sailing with the stream, but against it 1 On what topic has it ever 
swam with the current, except in a few instances wherein it has aided to change 
the current*? "Would any one who conducted a journal for Popularity's or 
Pelf's sake be likely to have taken the side of Liquor Prohibition, or Anti- 
Slavery or Woman's Rights, or Suffrage regardless of color, when we did? 
Would such a one have ventured to speak as we did in behalf of the Anti- 
Renters, when everybody hereabouts was banded to hunt them down unheard? 
Can you think it probable that, after what we have dared and endured, we are 
likely to be silenced now by the cry that we are periling our influence V 
* fli i(i ■^ -^ ■^ ^ * ^ 

" And now, if any would prefer to discontinue The Tribune because it is 
and must remain opposed to every measure or scheme of proscription for opin- 
ion's sake, We beg them not to delay one minute on our account. We shall 
all live till it is our turn to die, whether we earn a living by making newspa- 
pers or by doing something else. 

Every race has its own idea respecting what is best in the char- 
acter of a man. The English admire 'pluck ;' the French, adroit- 
ness ; the Germans, perseverance ; the Italians, craft. But when 
a Yankee would bestow his most special commendation upon 
another, he says, 'That is a man, sir, who generally succeeds in what 
ho undertakes.' Properly interpreted, this is high, perhaps the 
highest, praise ; for a man who succeeds in doing what he tries to 
do, must have the sense to choose enterprises suited to his abilities 
and circumstances. This praise, it is true, is frequently given to 
men whose objects are extremely petty — making a fortune, for ex- 
ample ; but if those objects were such as they could attain, if enter- 
prises of a higher nature were really beyond their abilities, how 
much wiser is it in them to attempt petty objects only ! But what- 
ever may be the value of the American eulogy — and a Yankee is 
an American, only more so— it may most justly be bestowed upon 
Horace Greeley. "Whatever he has attempted, he has done as well 
as, or better than, any one else had done it before him. A piously 
generous son, a perfect pupil, an apprentice of ideal excellence, a 
journeyman of unexampled regularity, perseverance, and effective- 



440 CONCLUI^ON. 

ness. His Xew Yorker was tlie best ftaper of its class that had 
been published. The Jeffersonian and Log Cabin excelled all pre- 
vious and all subsequent ' campaign papers.' The Tribune is our 
best daily paper. As a member of Congress, he was truer to him- 
self, and dared more in behalf of his constituents, than any man 
who ever sat for one session only in the House of Eepresenta- 
tives. In Europe, he retained possession of all his faculties ! In 
the presence of nobles, he was thoroughly himself, and he spoke 
eloquently for the toiling miUion. Emphatically, Horace Greeley 
is a man, sir, who has generally succeeded in what he has under- 
taken. 

But not always. He tried hard to get Henry Clay elected pres- 
ident. He tried long to wield the whig party for purposes of gen- 
eral beneficence. Neither of these objects could he accomplish. 

Of Horace Greeley's talents as a writer little need be said. A 
man whose vocation obliges him frequently to write at the rate of 
a column an hour, and who must always write with dispatch, can 
rarely produce literature. Nor can any man write with faultless 
ac'curacy who is acquainted with no language but that in which he 
writes. But Horace Greeley writes well enough for his purpose, 
and has given proof, in many a glowing passage and telling argu- 
ment, of a native talent for composition, which, in other circum- 
stances, might have manifested itself in brilliant and lasting works. 

His power as a writer arises from his earnestness of conviction, 
from his intimate acquaintance with the circumstances and feelings 
of his readers, from his Scotch-Irish fertility in illustration, and 
from the limited range of his subjects. He says not many things, 
but much. 

His forte is, as I have said, in making practical suggestions for 
the better conduct of life and afiairs. Like Franklin, he confines 
himself chiefly to the improvement of man's condition in material 
things ; but he is a better man than Eranklin ; he is Franklin lib- 
eralized and enlightened ; he is the Franklin of this generation. 
Like Franklin, too, and like most of the influencing men of this 
age, he is more pious than rehgious, more humane than devout. 

The reader need not be detained here by remarks upon Horace 
Greeley's errors of opinion. A man's opinions are the result, the 
entirely ine\'itable result of his character and circumstances. Sin- 



iiouACE Greeley's glory. 441 

cerity^ therefore, is our only just demand when we solicit an express- 
ion of opinion. Every man thinks erroneously. God alone knows 
all about anything. The smallest defect in our knowledge, the 
slightest bias of desire, or fear, or habit, is sufficient to mislead us. 
And in truth, the errors of a true man are not discreditable to him ; 
for his errors spring from the same source as his excellences. It 
was said of Charles Lamb, that he liked his friends, not in spite of 
their faults, tut faults and all ! and I think the gentle Charles 
Avas no less right than kind. The crook, the knot, and the great 
humpy excrescences are as essential features of the oak tree's beau- 
ty, as its waving crown of foliage. Let Horace Greeley's errors of 
opinion be what they may, he has done something in his day to 
clarify the truth, that no error of opinion is a hundredth part as det- 
rimental to the interest of men as the forcible suppression of opinion, 
either by the European modes of suppression, or the American. 
He has made it easier than it was to take the unpopular side. He 
has helped us onward towards that perfect freedom of thought and 
speech which it is fondly hoped the people of this country are des- 
tined in some distant age to enjoy. Moreover, a critic, to be com- 
petent, must be the superior of the person criticized. The critic is 
a judge, and a judge is the highest person in the court, or should 
be. This book is a chronicle, not an opinion. 

And to conclude, the glory of Horace Greeley is this : He began 
life as a workingman. As a workingman, he found out, and he 
experienced the disadvantages of the workingman's condition. He 
rose from the ranks to a position of commanding influence. But he 
ceased to be a workingman loith workingmen, only to become a 
workingman /or workingmen. In the editor's chair, on the lectur- 
er's platform, on the floor of Congress, at ducal banquets, in goocl 
report and in ill report, in the darkest days of his cause as in itf 
brightest, against his own interest, his own honor, his own safety, 
he has been ever true, in heart and aim, to his order, i. e. his coun- 
trymen. In other lands, less happy than ours, the people are a 
class ; here we are all people ; all together we must rise in the scale 
of humanity, or all together sink. 

A great man ? ISo. A great man has not recently trod this 
continent — some think not since Columbus left it, A model man ? 
No. Let no man be upheld as a model. Horace Greeley has tried 

19* 



442 CONCLUSION. 

to be his ' own man.' Be you yours. " I rejoice," says Miss Bre- 
mer, " that there is such a person as Fanny Kemble ; but I should 
be sorry if there were two." The spirit of goodness is ever the 
same ; but the modes of its manifestation are numberless, and every 
sterling man is original. 

Eeader, if you like Horace Greeley, do as well in your place, as 
he has in his. If you like him not, do better. And, to end with a 
good word, often repeated, but not too often: "The spieit m 
wmon WE ACT is the highest matter." 



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